Israel ready to treat Saudi initiative seriously: Olmert (Roundup)

Mar 11, 2007, 14:51 GMT

Jerusalem - Israel does not entirely reject a Saudi Arabian peace plan from 2002 which calls for Arab recognition of the Jewish state in return of a withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday, ahead of scheduled late- afternoon talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

But despite the premier's comments on the Saudi peace initiative, aides warned that the parley with Abbas was not expected to yield any dramatic results and was being held mainly to keep open lines of communication between the two men.

'We have said more than once that the Saudi initiative is a matter which we would be ready to treat seriously and our position has not changed, 'Olmert told his ministers at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

He said Israel hoped the plan's 'positive elements' would be emphasized at a meeting of Arab heads of state in Riyadh, something which, he added, could 'improve the chances of negotiations between us and the Palestinian Authority'.

The Saudi peace plan was first proposed in 2002, and adopted at an Arab League summit in Beirut that year. Arab leaders have stressed that the plan will not be altered, despite Israel's opposition to a clause calling for Palestinian refugees and their descendents to be allowed to return to the homes they fled or were evicted from in what is now Israel.

Israel fears that an influx of Palestinian refugees into its borders will change the demographic balance between Jews and Muslims and lead to eventually to Israel being replaced by a bi-national state, or one with a Muslim majority.

Preparations for the Olmert-Abbas meeting were decidedly low-key Sunday, and, emphasizing the low expectations, no news conference was scheduled for when the meeting ended.

Reports in the Israeli media Sunday morning said Olmert was expected to tell Abbas that Israel was not prepared to deal with any Palestinian national unity government unless it accepted international demands to recognise Israel, renounce violence and honour prior Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

Negotiations on the national unity government, between the ruling Hamas movement and Abbas' Fatah party, are in an advanced stage and the new cabinet is expected to be announced in the coming days.

Olmert is also expected to reject a request by Abbas to extend to the West Bank a truce instituted in the Gaza Strip on November 28.

Officials in the premier's office said there was no chance of the ceasefire being widened, in light of the Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli towns and villages bordering the salient.

The meeting will be the third between the two men since December 24. They also held a tree-way summit with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on February 19, in Jerusalem.