Excite News [spacer.gif] News Home Top News Video Business Technology Entertainment Sports World Odd [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] [spacer.gif] AP o Reuters Arabs Approve Mideast Peace Proposal, Support Iraq Email this story Arabs Approve Mideast Peace Proposal, Support Iraq March 28, 2002 12:53 pm EST By Samia Nakhoul BEIRUT (Reuters) - Arab leaders unanimously agreed on a far-reaching Saudi proposal for peace with Israel on Thursday and closed ranks against any U.S.-led attack on Iraq. Israel cautiously welcomed the plan, describing it as a "very important and interesting initiative," but said its terms on Palestinian refugees looked problematic. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians were bracing for fierce Israeli reprisals after Wednesday's suicide bombing that killed 20 people in the coastal city of Netanya. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from Beirut to try to head off a new wave of violence. "I urge the leadership of both peoples to stay the course and continue the quest for peace," he said in a statement. "The essential first step is an immediate cease-fire." A Beirut Declaration issued at the end of an often stormy two-day summit in the Lebanese capital endorsed a Saudi plan offering Israel peace and normal ties if it returns all occupied Arab land and agrees to live alongside a Palestinian state. It said Israel must also agree to a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugee problem in line with a 1948 U.N. resolution that calls for the refugees to be repatriated or compensated. In return the Arab countries would "consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended and enter into a peace agreement with Israel (and) establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace," the document said. REGIONAL TENSIONS Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah proposed the plan in a bid to halt 18 months of worsening Israeli-Palestinian violence and calm regional tensions that have soared since the September 11 attacks on the United States by Arab suicide hijackers. He piloted it through the summit despite Syrian reservations and in the absence of several key Arab leaders. Israel kept Arafat bottled up in the West Bank, saying he had failed to halt attacks by militants. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan decided at the last minute to stay at home for reasons yet to be fully explained. The Arab peace terms break little new ground, but do stress the Arab world's readiness to accept Israel in the region -- something which the conservative Islamic theocracy of Saudi Arabia had previously found particularly distasteful. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Amira Oron said it was hard for Israel to be receptive to such a peace proposal so soon after a "horrible" bomb attack. "What we are saying is that we welcome it. We think it's a very important and interesting initiative. But we are not going into the details of it without looking at the details first," she told Reuters. "After the horrible thing that happened yesterday, it's very hard for us today to speak about peace or peace talks. We hope time will make it easier for us," Oron said. Earlier, another ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nachshon, said the Saudi initiative "as it was presented by the summit of the Arab League represents a non-starter in its current form." He added that his country could not accept the return of Palestinian refugees to the homeland they lost when Israel was created in 1948. "This means the destruction of the state of Israel and obviously we cannot agree." Arafat gave his blessing to the Saudi plan in a televised speech originally intended for the summit. Lebanon's refusal to air his address by video link prompted a furious Palestinian walkout on Wednesday, but delegates later rejoined the summit. Apart from setting terms for ending more than half a century of conflict with Israel, Arab leaders soothed disputes festering between Iraq and Kuwait since the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. Iraq, keen to secure Arab support against a declared U.S. intention to topple President Saddam Hussein, came near to promising not to repeat its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. OLD ENEMIES EMBRACE Arab leaders, who clapped when the heads of the Saudi and Iraqi delegations embraced before them, called for the definitive lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed for the Iraqi invasion, as well as for U.N. resolutions to be respected. "We stress our total rejection of any attack on Iraq," they said in the Beirut Declaration read at the close of the summit. Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah told Reuters he had even shaken hands with Iraqi presidential envoy Izzat Ibrahim during a closed summit session. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are close U.S. allies and their support would be important if the United States decided to extend its war on terror to Iraq, lumped by President Bush into an "axis of evil" with Iran and North Korea. The Beirut Declaration "welcomed Iraq's confirmation to respect the independence, sovereignty and security of the state of Kuwait and guarantee its safety and unity to avoid anything that might cause a repetition of what happened in 1990." U.S.-led coalition forces drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, ending a seven-month occupation. Articles From Reuters