TOKYO/JERUSALEM, 14 March 2007 — Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said yesterday that a Saudi initiative for Middle East peace was a step forward — but only a starting point for negotiations. The peace plan, which has gained growing attention ahead of an Arab summit this month, calls for the Arab world to establish relations with Israel in return for Israel withdrawing from all Arab land captured in 1967.
Peres, visiting Tokyo for peace talks sponsored by Japan, said the proposal still contained “some preconditions” such as on the status of Palestinian refugees. “We need to negotiate without prior conditions, but none of us can force the other a priori,” Peres, a former prime minister and Nobel Peace laureate, told a news conference.
“It is the opening position, not the fallback position,” he said of the Saudi initiative. But Peres contrasted the initiative with Arab leaders’ Khartoum Declaration in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, which ruled out recognition of Israel. “If you look backward, if you look at the Khartoum Declaration,” Peres said, “then this is progress.” “But they cannot put conditions before the negotiations start,” Peres said.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who is due to meet with Peres today in four-way peace talks with Japan and Jordan, urged Israel to take the Saudi proposal “with a seriousness as required.” “In our opinion,” Erekat told a separate news conference, “this is the most strategic thing that has come from the Arab world since 1948,” when the state of Israel was created.
“Its mission is a road map and it’s a major step forward — a major step forward — from the Arab strategy in the 40s,” Erekat said. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, who was then crown prince, first outlined the proposal in 2002.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel “was ready to take seriously” the Saudi plan and hoped the March 28 Arab summit in Saudi Arabia would bolster its “positive elements.” But Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on a visit to Washington on Monday urged Arab nations to establish ties with Israel immediately, saying it would hasten the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Meanwhile, an Israeli inquiry into the failings of last year’s Lebanon war will issue interim findings next month that will draw conclusions about Olmert’s performance, a spokesman for the panel said yesterday.
Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and military top brass saw their popularity plummet after Israel failed to crush Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrilla group in a 34-day campaign that ended inconclusively with a UN-brokered cease-fire.
