By Wafa Amr RIYADH, March 25 (Reuters) - Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Sunday that Arab states would not amend their 2002 offer to Israel of normal ties in return for the Jewish state withdrawing from occupied land. The initiative offers the Jewish state normal relations with all Arab states in return for withdrawal from land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and a just and negotiated settlement for Palestinian refugees. Israel has repeatedly rejected the plan and is concerned the Arabs may use it to impose a settlement on refugees and borders. "There will be no amendment to the Arab peace initiative. We have said this 20 times before in the past and this is the last time I will say this," Prince Saud told reporters Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa has said that changing the peace plan during the March 28-29 Arab summit in Riyadh was "impossible". A Western diplomat said Israel and the United States want Arab countries to hold direct talks with Israel over peace terms rather than stick to the existing initiative, which sets Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in 1967 as a condition for peace. But officials say Arab leaders have no intention of amending a plan they see as an unprecedented Arab peace offer to Israel. "During the Arab summit preparatory meetings and setting the summit's agenda, representatives of all Arab states agreed the Arab peace initiative would not be changed," Palestinian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Jamal al-Shobaki, told Reuters. Another Palestinian official who attended the preparatory meetings said delegates from Syria, whose Golan Heights is under Israeli control, had been particularly insistent that the initiative not be watered down. An aide to Mahmoud Abbas said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in the Middle East ahead of the summit, had asked the Palestinian president if the Arab plan was negotiable. "President Abbas said no," the aide told Reuters. BALL IN ISRAEL'S COURT A another, senior Abbas aide said the Palestinians would propose at the summit to establish a committee of Arab states headed by Saudi Arabia to find ways to implement the peace plan. "We propose holding an international conference that would gather the Arabs and Israel to discuss how the Arab initiative would be implemented and each side could then bring its ideas and positions to the table," the second Abbas' aide said. In Egypt, Rice said the United States was not asking the Arabs to change their proposal but Arab states should do everything in their power to help bring about a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. On Saturday, Rice had talks in Aswan with the foreign ministers of four Arab governments friendly with the United States to promote what she is billing as a new U.S. drive for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Prince Saud said that meeting had no impact on the summit. "The meeting in Aswan is not related to the Arab summit. It is an attempt to explain U.S. efforts in the region," he said. Prince Saud said the Arab summit was expected to give full support to the Palestinian people and call for an end to the international blockade imposed since the militant Islamic Hamas group formed a Palestinian government in March 2006. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, whose group opposes the Arab peace plan because it offers to recognise Israel, visited Riyadh twice less than a week before the summit. A Palestinian official said Saudi officials had asked Meshaal to give full backing to the peace plan. Majdi al-Khalidi, an official in Abbas' office who attended the preparatory meetings, said delegates had prepared the draft resolutions to be discussed by Arab foreign ministers on Monday. "On the summit's agenda is an article calling for reactivating the Arab peace plan, another calling for ending the international blockade on the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinians would ask the Arabs for financial aid of $55 million for a year for budgetary support," Khalidi told Reuters.
