Israeli FM arrives in Cairo to focus on Arab peace initiative

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni arrived Thursday on a brief visit to Egypt to focus on an Arab peace initiative reactivated in late March by Arab leaders.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is scheduled to meet with visiting Livni, who will also hold talks with her Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts, Ahmed Abul Gheit and Abdul Ilah al-Khatib, as the two Arab countries having ties with Israel are exerting efforts to revive the stalled Mideast peace process.

The Arab Peace Initiative, first approved by the Arab League in its 2002 Beirut summit, calls for Israel's pullout from Arab land occupied in the 1967 Middle East War and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in return for the normalization of ties with Arab states.

Israel had rejected the initiative after it was first launched in 2002, but the Jewish state has recently said it could provide a basis for talks though there are amendments to the refugee issue.

At a meeting of 13 foreign ministers of a newly-formed Arab peace initiative committee on April 18 in Cairo, Egypt and Jordan was designated as the only members of an Arab committee to contact Israel on activating the initiative.

Source: Xinhua