Saudi peace plan unacceptable: Israel

JERUSALEM: Israeli Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar said a Saudi Arabian peace proposal that calls for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders was a precondition unacceptable to Israel, though the Cabinet made no formal decision at its weekly meeting on Sunday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has not commented on the proposal, said only that he wanted to see more details. The plan, floated last month by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in a
newspaper interview, envisages full political, economic and cultural ties between the Arabs and Israel in return for the Jewish state's withdrawal from all Arab lands it occupied in the 1967 Mideast war.
In the past, Sharon has repeatedly ruled out a return to the 1967 borders, though he has not formally rejected the Saudi plan. Saar told reporters after the Cabinet meeting that the Saudi provision on the withdrawal to the prewar lines was unacceptable as a starting
point for negotiations.