Israeli PM calls for peace talks with Lebanon

JERUSALEM, Sep 3 (Reuters) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today said he had made numerous and unsuccessful overtures to Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to talk peace.

''How natural it would be if the Lebanese prime minister replied to the many requests I conveyed to him, through different people, to sit down together, shake hands, make peace and end once and for all the hostility, fanaticism and hatred that part of his country feels towards us,'' Olmert said.

Olmert, whose government took office in May, did not say when the peace feelers were made.

He made the comments at a ceremony opening the Israeli school year in Maalot-Tarshiha, a northern town hit by dozens of rockets during 34 days of fighting with Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas that ended in a ceasefire on August 14.

''We are committed to the peace process and to the Arab peace initiative,'' Siniora said on Thursday. ''On this basis, Lebanon will be the last Arab state to sign a peace deal with Israel on the basis of a just, comprehensive and lasting peace.'' He was referring to a 2002 initiative that offers peace and normalisation of Arab relations with Israel in return for its return of all land captured in the 1967 West Asia war, establishment of a Palestinian state and a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue.

Some 1,200 Lebanese and 157 Israelis were killed in the recent fighting, and Israeli attacks caused widespread damage in southern Lebanon and in parts of Beirut. Hizbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, causing damage in numerous towns and villages.

REUTERS LL HT1847