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Arabs Offer Israelis Peace Plan
Thursday, March 28, 2002
(14:02 GMT)
The BBC

The refugee issue was the most contentious.
Image Credit: The Associated Press.

"We cannot accept on the one hand to have negotiations for the creation of a Palestinian state, an independent Palestinian state, and on the other hand have all the Palestinians come into Israel," Israeli Foreign Minister Emanuel Nachson said.

Arab leaders meeting in Beirut have unanimously endorsed Saudi Arabia's peace plan for the Middle East.

The peace initiative offers Israel "normal relations" and full peace with Arab states, if it pulls out of all Arab land it occupied in 1967.

It also calls for a "fair solution" to the problem of Palestinian refugees based on UN resolutions and a Palestinian sovereign state to be established with East Jerusalem as its capital.

News of the peace plan's approval came as Palestinian officials evacuated their offices in the West Bank town of Ramallah, for fear of another Israeli military attack.

Twenty Israelis were killed and more than 100 wounded on Wednesday night when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a busy hotel in the coastal city of Netanya.

* Refugee issue
* Ceasefire call
* Absentees
(More: BBC Online News Source)
2002 © The British Broadcasting Corporation.

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