Jordan's King Abdullah II is expected to travel to Egypt Tuesday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak on the Middle East violence and other issues, AFP reported.
The announcement comes amid growing support for a Saudi peace initiative revealed in the US press earlier this month involving the Arab world normalising ties with the Jewish state in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab lands.
The proposal gained support from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who has praised it for focusing directly on the Israeli occupation, and by most of the members of the 22-member Arab League. Jordan currently holds the rotating presidency of the Arab League.
The United States considers the initiative presented by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz an "important step" towards Middle East peace, but needs further details before taking a definite position, Secretary of State Colin Powell said.
Powell stated he had thanked the prince for the proposal first laid out in a New York Times editorial in a telephone call Sunday.
"I thanked him for the initiative that he frankly put on the table," Powell told reporters after meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique at the State Department. "I think it's an important step that we have welcomed and I wanted to share that with the crown prince, our reaction to his idea."
From the White House, spokesman Ari Fleischer said President George W. Bush "welcomes all initiatives whose goal is to bring peace to the Middle East," and suggested the Mitchell plan, devised by an international team headed by ex-Senator George Mitchell "represents the best path to achieve that peace."
Fleischer said further that during a visit to the region next month, Vice President Dick Cheney would certainly bring up the Saudi initiative in discussions to end the 17-month Palestinian intifada. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
