AP News, April 19th, 2007
The Arab League on Wednesday picked Egypt and Jordan to take the lead in approaching Israel to promote the Saudi-drafted peace plan in a bid to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel has praised the broad land-for peace offer but has said it will not accept the plan without some changes. However, Arab countries are hoping to pitch the plan as a basis for resuming Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.
Washington has also welcomed the Arab initiative, which calls for Israel to withdraw from lands seized in 1967 and negotiate a fair solution to the refugee issue in return for full recognition of Israel by all Arab countries. The plan was introduced by Saudi Arabia in 2002 and revived during an Arab summit in Riyadh last month.
At the end of a meeting Wednesday at Arab League headquarters in Cairo, 12 Arab nations' foreign ministers and their Palestinian counterpart selected Egypt and Jordan to approach Israel and push for the plan.
The two countries would try to "initiate direct talks" with Israel, "call on the Israeli government and all Israelis to accept the Arab peace initiative and to take this chance to resume the direct and serious talks on all levels," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a press conference.
Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said Israel would be "happy to hear the ideas of the Arab initiative from their representatives."
"Our position has remained unchanged. We will not dictate to them what to tell us and we will express our position in response," Eisin said.
The United States reacted cooly to the Arab League plan for selling the peace formula to Israel, with State Department spokesman Sean McCormack calling it a "start."
"We've talked about it for some time, about the fact that, of course, we would like to see an initiative in which there were more participants in some form of direct dialogue, discussion with Israel," McCormack said. "So we would view this as a first step in that regard."
It was not clear when the new contacts with Israel would be launched, but al-Faisal said, "soon, it could be tomorrow or in a week, it is up to Egypt and Jordan to take the step."
Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries that signed peace treaties with Israel, in 1979 and 1994 respectively, and regained territory lost in wars. Most Arab states insisted on a solution to the Palestinian problem before a recognition of Israel.
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Associated Press writer Jamal Halaby contributed to this report from Amman, Jordan.
