Arab countries on Wednesday chose Egypt and Jordan to take the lead to persuade Israel to accept an Arab peace initiative in an effort to activate the peace offer with the Jewish state, expressing Arab countries' commitment to the peace plan.

Egypt and Jordan, which already have retrieved occupied lands from Israel, signed peace treaties and established relations with the Jewish state, will be the only members of an Arab committee to contact Israel on the Arab peace initiative, a statement released by the Arab foreign ministers said.

The statement came after 13 foreign ministers of a newly-formed Arab peace initiative committee convened Wednesday at the Arab League (AL) headquarters with the attendance of AL Secretary General Amr Moussa to discuss efforts to activate the Arab peace initiative relaunched by 19th Arab summit in Riyadh in late March.

Earlier on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that he is willing to talk with any representative of Arab states and would like to hear their ideas to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Following the meeting on Wednesday, Moussa said at a joint press conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal that there is no free normalization of relations with Israel, reaffirming earlier stance that there is no amendments to the peace initiative.

However, Moussa expressed the readiness of Arab countries to enter into a final peace process and consider the Arab-Israeli conflict a thing of the past.

According to the statement read out by al-Faisal, after Israel stops its activities on the ground or the occupied lands, such as building settlements and separation security walls and the economic siege against the Palestinians, there will be an expanded team of Arab countries to contact Israel.

Al-Faisal added that Egypt and Jordan would try to initiate direct talks with Israel and call on the Israeli government and all Israelis to accept the Arab peace initiative and to take this chance to resume direct and serious talks on all levels.

But Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit underlined that Egypt and Jordan are only representatives of Arab states to persuade Israel to accept the peace initiative, ruling out holding peace talks with Israel, Egypt's MENA news agency reported.

Egypt and the AL insists that negotiation with Israel be an exclusive affair of any party which has a problem with Israel, whether Palestinians, Syrians or Lebanese.

The initiative, first approved by the AL in its 2002 Beirut summit and refused by Israel at first, calls for Israel's pullout from Arab land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in return for the normalization of ties with Arab states.

After the Arab summit reactivated the peace initiative in Riyadh in late March, the Israeli side has said it is willing to start a dialogue with Arab countries but will not accept the return of any Palestinian refugees demanded by the initiative.

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2007)