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JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday called for meetings with Arab leaders in what is considered an important breakthrough in the Middle East peace process.
Olmert last week said his country was ready to make "big and painful" concessions", and yesterday's call came amid a flurry of new international peace efforts.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has travelled frequently to Israel to try to spur negotiations, and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is also president of the EU, was by Olmert's side as he made his announcement.
He called for King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and other Arab leaders to meet him after last week's revival of the Arab League's "land for peace" offer for the Middle East.
Olmert said that if Saudi Arabia arranged a conference of moderate Arab states and invited him and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, he would attend.
Last week's Saudi-convened Riyadh summit revived a five-year-old offer of pan-Arab recognition of Israel in return for an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories and a return to 1967 borders.
Israel rejected the plan outright when it was proposed at an Arab summit in Beirut in 2002.
But last week, Olmert said Israel was "ready to make big and painful concessions" to encourage peace negotiations in the region.
Olmert has shown a positive attitude towards the peace proposal, but Israel opposes - for demographic and security reasons - letting Palestinian refugees return to their former homes in what is now the Jewish state. It also wants to hold on to settlements on the occupied West Bank.
Arab League head Amr Moussa told the meeting of Arab leaders the Middle East was at a crossroads and warned: "Either we move towards a real peace or see an escalation in the situation."
Olmert yesterday used a joint news conference with Merkel to declare his intentions.
"I invite a meeting of all the heads of Arab states, including, of course, the king of Saudi Arabia - who I see as a very important leader - to hold talks with us.
"I think it is time to make a momentous effort in order to give a push to the diplomatic process ... I am optimistic," he said.
In interviews over the weekend, Olmert said he would welcome talks with Saudi Arabia and moderate Arab leaders, but he stopped short of calling for a regional peace conference.
Almost every Israeli prime minister has called for peace talks with moderate Arab leaders over the years, but the only multinational forum was the 1991 Madrid conference, which was followed by secret Israeli-Palestinian contacts and a series of interim peace accords.
Olmert's invitation was the first time Israel has called on Saudi Arabia - which maintains a state of war with Israel, but has also pushed recently for a peace deal - to take the lead.
It was not clear what form such a meeting would take or how Olmert's proposal fits in with a weekend proposal by Egypt to meet a committee set up by last week's summit to pursue negotiations on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Diplomats said the US and Egypt had been urging Israel to agree to begin talks soon with the committee on how to advance the peace process.
Several Arab League countries would talk "formally and publicly as a collective" with Israel, a senior diplomat said of the US-Egyptian proposal.
Israel has registered strong reservations about the stance of the Arab states, and there were suggestions yesterday in Israeli Government circles that the Saudi King would need to convene such a meeting.
Olmert said moderate Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, wanted to be involved in efforts towards Israeli-Palestinian peace.
"I think the readiness to accept Israel as a fact and to debate the terms of a future solution is a step that I cannot help but appreciate," he said.
Abbas demanded that Israel "accept the initiative and allow an opportunity for direct, serious negotiations aimed at ending the Arab-Israeli conflict".
His aides say the new unity government, which brings together Abbas' Fatah and the militant Islamic Hamas, cannot be ignored because it represents the vast majority of the Palestinian people,
They also note that the Government wants a state established in territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast War, implying recognition of Israel, and that it seeks to consolidate a truce.
Yet Abbas has been unable to stop the rocket fire from Gaza, or win the release of a captured Israeli soldier.
Merkel met Olmert and Abbas on Sunday, shunning members of the unity Government.
In another sign of the progress Rice has made in bringing the opposing sides together, Olmert agreed to hold biweekly meetings with Abbas.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Olmert should agree to the Arab peace move.
"I think if he accepts the Arab initiative, it would open the way to many conferences, not one," he said.
After meeting Olmert, Merkel said the "quartet" of Mideast negotiators - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - would monitor progress in talks between Olmert and Abbas.
She said the four would check that the things that were agreed were also carried out.
Path to peace
* Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for a regional peace conference involving Arab leaders to discuss their ideas for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
* He said if Saudi Arabia arranged a conference of "moderate" Arab states and invited him and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, he would attend.
* This is the first time Israel has called on Saudi Arabia - which maintains a state of war with Israel but has also pushed for a peace deal - to take the lead in the peace process.
* Israeli prime ministers have called for peace talks with moderate Arab leaders before but the only multinational forum was the 1991 Madrid conference, which led to secret Israeli-Palestinian contacts and a series of interim peace accords.
* The latest move follows a summit of Arab leaders last week which revived a peace plan Israel rejected in 2002.
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