Arabs to renew Arab peace plan at Saudi summit

By Wafa Amr

RIYADH (Reuters) - Arab leaders will revive a five-year-old land-for-peace offer to Israel when they meet at a summit in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, seeking an end to decades of conflict at the heart of the region's problems.

The two-day Arab League summit is set to offer the Jewish state normal ties with all Arab countries if it fully withdraws from land it occupied in 1967, accepts a Palestinian state and agrees to a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel to take up the offer, calling it a last chance for peace with Muslims.

"This initiative simply says to Israel 'leave the occupied territories and you will live in a sea of peace that begins in Nouakchott and ends in Indonesia'," Abbas said on Tuesday, referring to the capital of Mauritania in West Africa and the country with the world's largest Muslim population.

"If this initiative is destroyed, I don't believe there will be another opportunity in the future like this."

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Monday the plan would have a strong chance of winning international support and of reviving Israeli-Arab peace talks if adopted unanimously by all Arab leaders at the March 28-29 summit.

Draft resolutions, hammered out on Monday, are dominated by the Arab-Israeli conflict and appear designed to entice Israel into talks without altering the text of the peace plan.

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