Arabs to renew Arab peace plan at Saudi summit

By Staff
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Riyadh, Mar 28: Arab leaders will revive a five-year-old land-for-peace offer to Israel when they meet at a summit in Saudi Arabia today, seeking an end to decades of conflict at the heart of the region's problems.

The two-day Arab League summit is set to offer the Jewish state normal ties with all Arab countries if it fully withdraws from land it occupied in 1967, accepts a Palestinian state and agrees to a ''just solution'' for Palestinian refugees.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel to take up the offer, calling it a last chance for peace with Muslims.

''This initiative simply says to Israel, leave the occupied territories and you will live in a sea of peace that begins in Nouakchott and ends in Indonesia,'' Abbas said, referring to the capital of Mauritania in West Africa and the country with the world's largest Muslim population.

''If this initiative is destroyed, I don't believe there will be another opportunity in the future like this,'' said the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. He said on Monday the plan would have a strong chance of winning international support and of reviving Israeli-Arab peace talks if adopted unanimously by all Arab leaders at the March 28-29 summit.

Draft resolutions, hammered out on Monday, are dominated by the Arab-Israeli conflict and appear designed to entice Israel into talks without altering the text of the peace plan.

Many Hurdles:

The draft text calls on ''all Israelis to accept the initiative and seize the current opportunity to return to a direct and serious negotiating process at all levels.'' It also sets up a mechanism to promote the peace plan that could pave the way for Arab countries with no ties to Israel, including Saudi Arabia, to open channels of communications with the Jewish state -- a long-time goal of US administrations.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who will attend the summit, said on Monday that Israeli and Palestinian leaders, along with officials from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, could be invited to attend the next Quartet meeting, expected to take place in Egypt.

The ''Quartet'' of the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia has been responsible for steering peace talks.

Yet the plan faces many hurdles. Israel has objected to key elements, including the proposed return to 1967 borders, the inclusion of Arab East Jerusalem in a Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees to homes in what is now Israel.

The Islamist movement Hamas, which heads the Palestinian government, also has some reservations about the text.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was quoted by Saudi media as urging Arab leaders ahead of the summit not to make concessions on the demand for the Palestinian refugees to return home.

Hamas demands a right to return for all Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war. It has refused to recognise Israel, but Palestinian officials say it has agreed not to go against the peace plan.

The final draft avoids mention of the phrase ''right of return'' for Palestinian refugees but calls for a just solution.

Reuters

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