WASHINGTON - Washington on Monday hailed a call from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Arab leaders to hold talks on a Saudi-drafted plan for Middle East pace as a positive move.
"The idea that the Israelis and Arab states could get together in some form just to have initial discussions about where the situation stood and the ideas and proposals for how to move a process or reconciliation forward, is positive," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
Olmert on Sunday invited the heads of Arab states to hold talks with Israel over the Saudi-drafted plan.
"I invite all the heads of the Arab states, including of course the Saudi king whom I consider a very important leader, to hold talks with us," Olmert said in Jerusalem.
"If the Saudi king initiates a meeting of moderate Arab states and invites me and the head of the Palestinian Authority in order to present us the Saudi ideas, we will come to hear them and we will be glad to voice ours," Olmert said.
At their summit in Riyadh last week, Arab leaders revived a five-year-old plan that offers Israel normal relations if it withdraws from all land seized in the 1967 Six Day War, and allows for the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees.
Israel rejected the plan when it was first adopted in 2002, but has now said it could serve as a basis for talks provided there were changes on the refugee issue, something the Arab heads of state rejected in Riyadh.
04/02/2007 16:55 GMT