(Adds background, Olmert quote)

JERUSALEM, March 26 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signalled reluctance on Wednesday to attend a Middle East peace summit proposed by Russia, but did not rule it out.

"I think, quite frankly, as I said to (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov that, you know, what we need in order to make peace in the Middle East is to see the two sides sitting together and talk rather than going to international conventions," Olmert told reporters in English.

Russian officials said last week Moscow was preparing to host a Middle East peace conference this year to try to relaunch talks between Israel and Syria about the occupied Golan Heights.

Lavrov said during a visit to Syria the conference would be a follow-up to a U.S.-hosted meeting in Annapolis in November that relaunched peace talks between the Jewish state and the Palestinians.

Peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000 over the extent of a proposed Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, a strategic plateau that Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Tension between the two nations has risen since then. Olmert reiterated on Wednesday that Israel was willing to make peace with Syria and said he hoped the two sides would be able to hold talks.

"I said indeed that I am prepared to make peace with Syria. I hope that the Syrians are prepared to make peace with Israel and I hope that the circumstances will allow us to sit together," Olmert told a news conference for foreign journalists. "That doesn't mean that when we sit together you have to see us." (Reporting by Dan Williams; Editing by Tim Pearce)

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