Arab ministers in Israel for land-for-peace talks

By Adam Entous

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Two Arab envoys on a landmark visit to Israel presented its leaders with a regional land-for-peace plan on Wednesday and called for a rapid timetable for talks with the Palestinians over statehood.

Israel described the one-day visit by the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers as a "historic" move on the part of the 22-nation Arab League. But it stopped short of embracing their initiative, which offers a comprehensive Arab peace if the Jewish state cedes all occupied land and meets other demands.

Reaching out to the Palestinians and Arab states, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent the clearest signal yet that he would try to restart talks on the final status of a Palestinian state with President Mahmoud Abbas, whose secular Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip last month to Hamas Islamists.

"We need a precise timetable, a quick timetable and we urge Israel not to waste this historic opportunity. Time is not on our side," Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib told a news conference at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said it was not sufficient for Israel to limit talk to what diplomats call a "political horizon" -- defined by Olmert's aides as the legal, economic and governmental structures of a future Palestinian state. "I don't see (that) as enough because the horizon, often if not frequently, is never reached," he said.

Olmert said there was "a chance in the near future for the process to ripen into talks that would, in effect, deal with the stages of establishing a Palestinian state".

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Israel's Channel 10 television that talks should include "issues that go beyond the immediate" with the goal of achieving "the broadest agreements possible at this time".

But Olmert, weakened domestically by last year's inconclusive war in Lebanon, said there were "no precise timetables or stages established yet" for getting to discussions about permanent borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, all divisive issues in the Jewish state.