Jordan king to meet Palestinian leader

Jordan's King Abdullah II will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah Sunday on a rare visit to the Palestinian territories aimed at relaunching Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the Jordanian government said.

The statement, carried by the official Petra news agency on Friday, said Abdullah will discuss international efforts to jump-start the peace process based on an Arab peace initiative first launched in Saudi Arabia in 2002 and revived at a summit in Riyadh in March.

The Arab initiative promises full peace with all Arab nations if Israel withdraws from territories captured in the 1967 Middle East War and agrees to creation of a Palestinian state. It also calls for a "just solution" to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

The Arab League has mandated Egypt and Jordan _ the only Arab nations with peace treaties with Israel _ to promote the offer to Israel.

Israel and the United States have said the plan could be a basis for reviving the peace process. But Israel has expressed reservations over many of its provisions, including the call to solve the Palestinian refugee issue.

Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Judeh told The Associated Press that Abdullah's visit "reflects the king's continuous and well known position and efforts to push all the sides to the negotiation table and his full support for the establishment of a Palestinian state."

Nabil Abu Redneih, Abbas' spokesman, was quoted by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA as saying the king's visit "comes as part of the consultation and coordination between the (Palestinian) Authority and the kingdom to push forward the peace process and revive it according to the Arab peace initiative."

Abdullah has visited Ramallah once before, a brief stopover to see then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 2000, soon after Abdullah ascended to the throne. In 1999, he visited Arafat in the Gaza Strip.

His decision to hold Sunday's talks in the West Bank _ ruled by Jordan until Israel seized the Palestinian territories in the 1967 Mideast War _ underlined the sense of urgency Jordan feels in pushing forward the lagging efforts to revive peace efforts.

On Thursday, Abdullah urged a group of visiting Israeli peace activists in Amman to preserve the diminishing opportunity for peace by supporting the Arab peace initiative

For months, both sides have been talking about a new opportunity to relaunch the peace process, but little concrete progress has been made. Arab countries have been aggressively pushing their peace initiative, but Israel has continued to express reservations.

The Palestinians formed a new government bringing Abbas's moderate Fatah faction into a coalition alongside the militant Hamas group, hoping that would be enough to persuade Israel to resume negotiations, but little movement has occurred.

The visit is the latest step in a flurry of diplomatic activity. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met Thursday in Cairo with Egypt's president and foreign minister and the Jordanian foreign minister. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meets Abdullah on Tuesday in Jordan.

Palestinian Foreign Minister, Ziad Abu Amr, arrived on Friday in the Jordanian capital for talks with senior officials ahead of Abdullah's visit.