Olmert Invites Arabs To Jerusalem for Talks

Olmert Invites Arabs To Jerusalem for Talks

JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, warming to a Saudi peace initiative, issued a surprise invitation Sunday to Arab leaders to meet with him in Jerusalem and exchange ideas for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He also said he would join moderate Arab leaders and the Palestinian Authority president for the same purpose if King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia were to convene such a summit.

"I think it is time to make a momentous effort in order to give a push to the diplomatic process," Olmert said at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

There was no immediate reaction from Arab leaders.

The Saudi initiative, a five-year-old plan revived last week at a meeting of Arab nations in Riyadh, offers Israel peace and acceptance in the region in return for Israeli withdrawal from lands it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, including the West Bank, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. It also demands that Israel recognize the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants.

Olmert's openness to a regional summit was unexpected, given Israel's skepticism about the plan and its historic aversion to multilateral peace talks in which the Jewish state would be outnumbered.

ASIA

· HONIARA, Solomon Islands -- At least six people were killed and entire villages engulfed by the sea after a powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the tiny Solomon Islands, triggering a Pacific panic and fears of more deaths.

The magnitude-8 quake, leveled buildings and damaged a hospital on Gizo Island northwest of the Solomons capital, Honiara, while a tsunami sucked homes into the sea as thousands of panicked residents fled for higher ground.

"The wave was up to 10-metres (32 feet) high in some villages," a government spokesman said. "Some villages have been entirely washed away."

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at 7:39 a.m. about 6 miles beneath the sea floor, 217 miles northwest of the capital, Honiara.

The Pacific region from Australia to Hawaii went on high alert for several hours after the quake struck between the islands of Bougainville and New Georgia.