Saudi king: U.S. presence in Iraq “illegitimate”

Saudi king: U.S. presence in Iraq “illegitimate”

But Abdullah's focus was mostly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Sunni Arab leaders see as a major cause of violent radicalism in their own countries and threat to regional stability.

In a strongly worded speech, he chastised the leaders for infighting and said their divisions had fueled turmoil throughout the Middle East. He painted a bleak picture of the crises and bloodshed in the region - from Lebanon and Sudan to Iraq - and lectured those attending that it was time to act.

The gathering is aimed at restarting a 2002 initiative that offered Israel peace with the Arab world if it withdrew from lands it seized in the 1967 Mideast war, a proposal the United States and Europe hope can build efforts to resume the long-stalled peace process. Abdullah on Wednesday prodded Arab leaders to take united action aimed at reviving the peace offer.

The leaders have refused calls for changes in the plan to win Israeli acceptance, but Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, allies of the United States, want the summit meeting to give them flexibility in promoting the offer to the West and to Israel.

Abdullah called for the lifting of the "oppressive" international financial embargo on the Palestinians "as soon as possible so the peace process will get to move in an atmosphere without oppression."

"The real blame should be directed at us, the leaders of the Arab nation," he said. "Our constant disagreements and rejection of unity have made the Arab nation lose confidence in our sincerity and lose hope."

The two-day summit meeting comes against a tense regional backdrop, with fears high among Arab leaders that a U.S.-led attack on Iran, a non-Arab nation that has refused to comply with UN demands to halt its nuclear program, could further destabilize the region.

Washington's Arab allies are increasingly worried that crises in the Middle East are building up to a point of disaster, with fears of disintegration in Iraq, increasing Iranian power in Iraq and Lebanon, and growing militancy fueled by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Saudi Arabia has taken a leading role in trying to mediate an easing of the tensions, particularly in the peace process. The kingdom brokered the formation of a Palestinian unity government between the moderate Fatah party and the militant group Hamas, hoping it would be able to enter peace talks with Israel and prompt the West to end the financial embargo on the previous Hamas-led government.

Israel, which rejected the Arab peace initiative in 2002, now says it could accept it if it was amended, particularly to water down its provisions calling for a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugees issues.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, toured the region ahead of the summit meeting, trying to build momentum for the peace process and the Arab initiative. Ban spoke Wednesday at the summit talks, calling the initiative "one of the pillars of the peace process" and urging Israel to "take a fresh look at it."

The secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, rejected amending the peace offer, saying, "They tell us to amend it, but we tell them to accept it first, then we can sit down at the negotiating table." But he said Arabs must "do more to convince" the Israelis on the offer.

Although the summit meeting is restarting the peace plan as is, it will create "working groups" to promote the offer in talks with the United States, United Nations and Europe - and perhaps Israel. The summit meeting's final resolution calls on Israel to accept the initiative and "seize this opportunity to resume serious, direct negotiations on all tracks."

Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are hoping that the working groups can work behind the scenes to make the initiative more palatable to Israel and the West. The Jordanian foreign minister, Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib, told the Arab daily Al-Hayat that there was a "potential" that the working groups could hold direct talks with Israel.

But much depends on the makeup of the working groups, which could be a source of dispute at the summit meeting. Some have spoken of restricting the membership to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. But Syria, which opposed changing the initiative, may also seek to join, fearing it could be sidelined by the moderates.

The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, a guest at the Riyadh summit meeting, said both sides should show flexibility.

"The important thing is to get the negotiations started," he said. "In any negotiations there are changes in positions, because negotiations are like that."