Olmert invites Arab leaders to talks on 'land for peace'

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has issued a public call for King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and other Arab leaders to meet him in the wake of last week's revival of their "land for peace" offer for the Middle East.

Mr Olmert's call came in response to the Saudi-convened Riyadh summit which revived a five-year-old offer of pan-Arab recognition of Israel in return for an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories and a return to 1967 borders. Mr Olmert used a news conference with the visiting German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to declare that "I invite for [sic] a meeting all the heads of Arab states, including... the king of Saudi Arabia, who I see as a very important leader, to hold talks with us."

It was not immediately clear what form such a meeting - if it happened - would take or how Mr Olmert's proposal fits in with a weekend proposal by Egypt to meet with a committee set up by last week's summit to pursue negotiations on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Israel has registered strong reservations about the stance of the Arab states and there were suggestions in Israeli government circles that the Saudi King, whose regime does not recognise Israel, would need to convene such a meeting.

Mr Olmert said Israel and the Arab states would not necessarily be saying the "same thing" to each other.

But he added that "moderate Arab states led by Saudi Arabia" want to be involved actively in efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace. "I think the readiness to accept Israel as a fact and to debate the terms of a future solution is a step that I cannot help but appreciate," he added.

Earlier yesterday, the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had reacted cautiously to the proposals from Egypt, reportedly backed by the US, for early talks with a committee set up by the Arab League to promote its Riyadh declaration.

While extending a general, if heavily qualified, welcome to the initiative Israel has also lost no time in stating its rejection of elements of the declaration. Mr Olmert indicated he would reject any compromise on Israel's refusal to accept any of the refugees who fled their homes in 1948.

Ms Livni said after a telephone call with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit: "We would like to promote dialogue with [Arab states] to seek peace and normalisation between Israel and these states."

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, also used a press conference with Ms Merkel to call on Israel "to take constructive steps to answer the peace initiative put forward by Arab countries".

But diplomatic sources said Israel still distrusts international forums as a route to a solution of the conflict and insists that direct negotiations with the Palestinians are the preferred way to resolve the conflict. The potential impasse imposed by that stance is underlined by the fact that Mr Olmert is also reluctant to hold direct negotiations with Mr Abbas on the outlines of a possible peace settlement as long as Hamas refuses to recognise Israel.

An opinion poll in Haaretz newspaper yesterday showed that of the 62 per cent of Israelis who had heard about the Saudi initiative, 58 per cent supported responding to it, while 38 per cent were opposed. As significant, however, 72 per cent believed that Mr Olmert, who faces unusually low personal ratings for an Israeli Prime Minister, did not have the public support to negotiate a final status settlement with the Palestinians. The poll comes as some Israeli press commentators warned Mr Olmert against missing diplomatic chances afforded by the Riyadh summit. Zeev Tzahor, writing in Yedhiot Ahronot compared Israel's situation now with that when Golda Meir's rejected Egypt's peace overtures two years before the 1973 Yom Kippur war. He wrote: "The Saudi initiative now offers the Middle East a new, rare opportunity, and the Israeli leadership is once again facing an historic test."

Source

About headlines and content that gets changed after it was added to this site - see disclaimer here

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.