Arab League chief Amr Moussa has rejected an Israeli call to participate in a regional summit to re-activate the peace process, describing it as "not serious." "The letter wasn't serious and offered nothing new," the secretary general said during a press conference in Cairo with Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere. "It's only goal was to get normalization for free." Moussa added that the invitation came in the form of a letter from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to participate in a meeting of Israelis, Palestinians and "moderate" Arab nations. He said the rejected the offer because the Israelis wanted to modify the Arab peace initiative and were describing the return of Palestinian refugees as a "red line".
Olmert, who has long rejected peace plans, said on Sunday that he was ready to attend a summit with Arab leaders to discuss a Saudi-drafted peace initiative and called on Arab nations to convene such a meeting. At their summit in Riyadh last week, Arab leaders revived the five-year-old plan that calls on Israel to withdraw from all land seized in 1967 and allow the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes.
Israel rejected the plan when it was first adopted in 2002, but now says it could serve as a basis for talks provided there were changes on the refugee issue, something the Arab heads of state rejected in Riyadh.