PARIS: Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal said on Saturday that his country had yet to be officially informed of a new US initiative to anchor democracy in the Arab world but said the proposals would be taken up at an Arab summit in Tunis late next month.

Speaking after talks here with French President Jacques Chirac, the Saudi minister also said the Tunis summit, to be held March 29-30, would also discuss a Saudi Middle East peace plan, adopted at an Arab League summit in Beirut two years ago.

The Saudi plan offers Israel normal ties with Arab states in return for its full withdrawal from the territories it seized in the 1967 Middle East war.

"We hear the press talk of this (US) initiative but we have not received anything official about it," the foreign minister said. "Since it concerns the Middle East, it will certainly be discussed at the Arab League (summit)."

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was considering a major international initiative aimed at encouraging democratic reforms in the greater Middle East and looking for ways to "institutionalize" such a project.

The Saudi minister said his talks with Chirac had highlighted a "broad convergence of views between Saudi Arabia and France."

Meanwhile, French presidential spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said Chirac and the Saudi minister agreed that any democratic initiative for the Arab world should be pursued in parallel with a revival of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

"France and Saudi Arabia share the view that an initiative aimed at backing modernization and reform in the Arab and Muslim world must necessarily be coupled with a revival of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem," she said.-AFP