No changes to Arab peace plan in offing: Palestinian FM

By Khalid Ibrahim

DEAD SEA, Jordan (AA) - Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki says there is no plan to modify a 2002 Arab initiative aimed at achieving peace with Israel.

The Saudi-proposed initiative offers Israel full diplomatic recognition from the Arab states in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Arab land occupied in 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

"There is no intention to modify any article of the Arab Peace Initiative," al-Maliki told reporters on Monday on the sidelines of an Arab ministerial meeting in Jordan.

Any modification of the proposal, he stressed, "is rejected by the Palestinians and Arabs".

An Arab League summit that will convene this week in Jordan, al-Maliki added, "will adopt a resolution about [the Arab] commitment to the original plan without changes or modification”.

The summit is scheduled to kick off on Wednesday in Jordan’s western Dead Sea region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, has rejected the Arab initiative -- as it currently stands -- as a basis for peace talks with the Palestinians.