Arab leaders urge Israel, world to take peace offer

By Wafa Amr and Andrew Hammond

RIYADH (Reuters) - Arab leaders urged Israel and the world on Thursday to take up a 5-year-old peace plan to end the conflict with Israel, and the Palestinian president warned of more violence if the "hand of peace" was rejected.

The endorsement at a two-day Arab summit came amid a U.S. push to restart the Middle East peace process, and Washington welcomed the endorsement as "very positive", but Israel stopped short of welcoming the plan it rejected in 2002.

Speaking at the end of the summit in Riyadh, Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel not to waste the chance for peace, saying the region would be face the threat of more war without a solution.

"I reiterate the sincerity of the Palestinian will in extending the hand of peace to the Israeli people ... We should not waste more chances in the history of this long and painful cause," the Palestinian president told the closing ceremony.

The plan offers Israel normal ties with Arab states in return for withdrawal from land seized in the 1967 war and the creation of a Palestinian state.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres said on Thursday that Arabs and Israel should have direct talks on peace rather than setting pre-conditions.

"It is time now to start negotiating and not only to make announcements," he told Al Jazeera television.

The final communique read by Arab League chief Amr Moussa at the close of the summit affirmed "just and comprehensive peace as a strategic option for the Arab nation in accordance with the Arab peace initiative" based on the "land for peace" formula.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Arabs should use the plan "as a point of active diplomacy and as a way of energising the push for peace in the Middle East".

PEACE HAS A PRICE

Rejected by Israel when it was originally proposed at a Beirut summit in 2002, the plan has important hurdles to overcome.

Israel objects to key points, including a return to 1967 borders, the inclusion of Arab East Jerusalem in a Palestinian state and the return Palestinian refugees to what is now Israel.

Islamist group Hamas, which heads the Palestinian government, also has reservations about the plan. It has not voiced opposition but called on Arab leaders not to compromise on the right of refugees to return to homes lost in the turmoil surrounding the creation of Israel almost 60 years ago.

Arab leaders had discussed insisting on the right of return, but the final plan calls for a "just solution" to the refugees issue.

At a closing news conference, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Israel was subjecting "not only the region but itself to dangers with unpredictable repercussions" if it ignored peace offers. Moussa said peace comes with a price.