16 May 2004	Sunday	25 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

DEAD SEA COAST, May 15: Jordan's King Abdullah said on Saturday that Arabs would never accept any reforms imposed from outside, and proposed setting up a team of Arab experts to prepare a plan to be implemented by 2010.

Abdullah also told the opening session of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at a Dead Sea resort that a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict was crucial for any progress towards reforms in the Middle East.

"...there is no trust in the region for a blueprint of reform that does not address people's concerns as they see them- including a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," he told the meeting attended by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Most Arab states have rejected a US plan for reforms in the Middle East that does not require a solution for the Israeli-Arab conflict.

The plan, drafted under the title of the Greater Middle East, is due to be announced at a summit of the Group of Eight leaders in the United States in June.

King Abdullah said Arabs were seeking a 'consensus-driven vision' of change by the year 2010.

"Soon, some of the best and the brightest in the Arab world will begin defining a more specific 'vision of the Middle East in 2010," he said, adding that they would be guided by a group of leading members of Arab civil society. He said the plan would be presented at a WEF meeting next January but gave little other details.

"The approach I suggest looks forward, not to a remote and a distant future, but to an attainable new present. And it is a comprehensive approach, one that deals with the region's core needs: peace based on justice, progress based on reform."

Jordan is a key US ally sandwiched between the region's two hot spots - Israel and the Palestinian territories to the west and Iraq to the east.

The young king has sided with Washington in its war on Iraq and has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the creation of a Palestinian state. He has also led calls for radical reform in the Arabic world and a shift towards democracy among Arab governments.

Arab leaders are set to hold a summit in Tunis on May 22-23 -a summit delayed by rifts over the scope and pace of political and economic reform.-Reuters