CAIRO, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Arab countries on
Wednesday chose Egypt and Jordan to take the lead to persuade Israel to accept
an Arab peace initiative in an effort to activate the peace offer with the
Jewish state, expressing Arab countries' commitment to the peace plan.
Egypt and Jordan, which already have retrieved
occupied lands from Israel, signed peace treaties and established relations with
the Jewish state, will be the only members of an Arab committee to contact
Israel on the Arab peace initiative, a statement released by the Arab foreign
ministers said.
The statement came after 13 foreign ministers of a
newly-formed Arab peace initiative committee convened here Wednesday at the Arab
League (AL) headquarters with the attendance of AL Secretary General Amr Moussa
to discuss efforts to activate the Arab peace initiative relaunched by 19th Arab
summit in Riyadh in late March.
Earlier on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
said that he is willing to talk with any representative of Arab states and would
like to hear their ideas to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Following the meeting on Wednesday, Moussa said at a
joint press conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal that
there is no free normalization of relations with Israel, reaffirming earlier
stance that there is no amendments to the peace initiative.
However, Moussa expressed the readiness of Arab
countries to enter into a final peace process and consider the Arab-Israeli
conflict a thing of the past.
According to the statement read out by al-Faisal,
after Israel stops its activities on the ground or the occupied lands, such as
building settlements and separation security walls and the economic siege
against the Palestinians, there will be an expanded team of Arab countries to
contact Israel.
Al-Faisal added that Egypt and Jordan would try to
initiate direct talks with Israel and call on the Israeli government and all
Israelis to accept the Arab peace initiative and to take this chance to resume
direct and serious talks on all levels.
But Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit
underlined that Egypt and Jordan are only representatives of Arab states to
persuade Israel to accept the peace initiative, ruling out holding peace talks
with Israel, Egypt's MENA news agency reported.
Egypt and the AL insists that negotiation with Israel
be an exclusive affair of any party which has a problem with Israel, whether
Palestinians, Syrians or Lebanese.
The initiative, first approved by the AL in its 2002
Beirut summit and refused by Israel at first, calls for Israel's pullout from
Arab land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and the establishment of an
independent Palestinian state in return for the normalization of ties with Arab
states.
After the Arab summit reactivated the peace
initiative in Riyadh in late March, the Israeli side has said it is willing to
start a dialogue with Arab countries but will not accept the return of any
Palestinian refugees demanded by the initiative.
JERUSALEM, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday that he is hopeful of achieving peace with Arab
neighbors since some of them are showing "first signs of understanding" towards
the Jewish State.
"Israel is now seeing the first signs of
understanding from countries which never had relations with us, which now
understand that Israel is a power whose existence cannot be ignored," Olmert was
quoted by local daily Yedioth Ahronoth as saying in Jerusalem. Full story
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