JORDAN: Jordan's king urges Israel to adopt Arab peace plan

Jordan's King Abdullah urged Israel on Thursday (April 19) not to waste an "historic opportunity" to end decades of enmity with its Arab neighbours by turning down a sweeping land-for-peace initiative. The monarch's message was conveyed during talks at the royal palace with Acting Israeli President and Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik in the first meeting between a top Israeli official and an Arab leader to discuss the initiative, relaunched at an Arab League summit last month in Riyadh. Itzik flew with an Israeli delegation from Israel to Amman, where she was greeted by Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib. "Israel should not squander this historic opportunity that the Arab peace plan offers, to achieve Middle East peace ... which will ensure Israel's recognition by all Arab states and real integration into the region," a palace statement quoted the monarch as telling Itzik, who later held a separate meeting with Prime Minister Marouf Bakhet. Pro-Western Jordan is spearheading an Arab campaign to get Israel to accept the plan that offers it normal ties with all Arab states in return for a full withdrawal from the lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East war, the creation of a Palestinian state and a solution of the Palestinian refugee problem. Arab foreign ministers asked Egypt and Jordan on Wednesday to contact Israelis and try to persuade them to accept the plan. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he sees positive points in the Saudi-led peace initiative. Israel opposes the return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes in what is now the Jewish state, and wants to hold on to major settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank. SS/AD

ITN Source | April 20, 2007

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