March 11, 2002	Monday	Zilhaj 26, 1422

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CAIRO, March 10: Saudi Arabia called on Sunday for a full Israeli withdrawal from Arab land in return for “complete peace” after diplomats said it modified an initiative to end spiralling Palestinian-Israeli violence.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal dropped a previous call for “complete normalization” with Israel after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Arab foreign ministers preparing for an Arab summit in Beirut on March 27.

Arab diplomats here said Saudi Arabia had agreed to a Syrian request to introduce instead the term “complete peace,” because it stresses diplomatic or government-to-government rather than people-to-people ties. Arab foreign ministers on Sunday were ending three days of preparatory talks for the summit amid unprecedented violence.

The ministers prepared to adopt a resolution urging Arab states to continue lobbying the United Nations and “concerned parties” to stop “Israeli aggression” and offer protection for the Palestinians, Egypt’s Middle East News Agency (MENA) said.

Such lobbying has yet to bear fruit. They also prepared to adopt a resolution that calls on Arab countries to create popular organizations aimed at supporting the Palestinians and the uprising, the state-run MENA said.

Foreign Minister Faisal said earlier that Arab states wanted Israel to “do what is required of it by international law and UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and the precedent of Madrid for a complete withdrawal from Arab lands.”

This included the “establishment of an independent Palestinian state on its national territory with its capital Jerusalem,” the minister told reporters after talks with President Mubarak in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

If Israel were to do this, then “it would find complete peace with the Arab states,” he said.—AFP