Ahead of a visit to the UK by Ariel Sharon, a Foreign Office minister has said he is confident the conflict between Israel and Palestine can be resolved.

The Israeli premier is expected to hold talks with top government ministers amid continuing efforts to implement the peace process "road map".

Bill Rammell told ePolitix.com that despite recent setbacks the prospects for Middle East peace are "the best...they have been for a very long time".

In an exclusive interview, the minister said that Britain had a key role in securing the publication of the "road map" to peace but denied this had been in return for sending troops to Iraq.

The Harlow MP also insisted that evidence of Iraq's weapons programme would be found, while repeating the prime minister's call for "time".

He said the government had acted on Iraq "because we believed it to be right, because we believed that there was a real danger and threat from Iraq and we felt that was something that we had to do".

"However it is the case that we have very strongly at the same time pressed for the publication of the road map because we felt that that was very important," Rammell added.

"And in terms of some of the wider concerns in the Middle East I think that was important to achieve."

The Foreign Office had been "impressed" with progress towards the road map's goal of a two-state solution to the Israel and Palestine question, Rammell said.

"I think there are more grounds for optimism than there has been for some time," he said.

"Particularly on the Middle East peace process I think the international community is very, very united.

"I don't want to overstate it, but I think we've got the best prospects for carrying through and really genuinely achieving peace than has been there for an awful long while."

Rammell said that President Bush was committed to the road map process and dismissed suggestions that suspicions about the motives for the war in Iraq reduced Britain and America's influence in the region.

"President Bush does have a personal commitment to the process, he is the first president to call unequivocally for a two state solution in the Middle East and I think that is very much the right way forward," he said.

"We need to take ourselves back to last November and Resolution 1441 at the security council where the whole international community agreed unanimously, 15 votes to zero, that we were giving Saddam Hussein a final ultimatum that he had to give up his weapons of mass destruction because he posed a threat to the region and the international community.

"He failed to respond to that, that was why we took military action.

"I have no doubt that he was developing a programme of weapons of mass destruction before the conflict and I've got no doubt that in time the evidence for that will be found."

But the minister added that there are still some differences in policy between Downing Street and the White House.

"There are differences, if you look at the situation in Cuba, if you look at the International Criminal Court, if you look at the Kyoto protocol, we take a different view," he said.

"With friends you can agree to disagree on some of these issues.

"And specifically within the Middle East, for example on Iran, we have the same concerns about nuclear proliferation and the danger from terrorist groups but we pursue different strategies, we believe in the process of engagement and I think that's an area where there is a difference of emphasis between us and the States."