Israeli PM, top Saudi figure met recently

JERUSALEM - AFP- Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently held an unprecedented meeting with an ‘extremely’ senior figure in the Saudi royal house, the Yedioth Aharonot daily reported on Monday.

The mass-selling paper quoted senior Israeli officials on the meeting, including one that said that the Saudi figure was Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah himself, who met the Israeli leader in an undisclosed location.

During their talks, the leaders discussed Iran’s controversial nuclear programme as well as the Saudi peace initiative, which was adopted by the Arab league in 2002 with Israel, the report said.

Under the plan, the Arab world would normalise relations with Israel in exchange for a withdrawal from all land occupied since 1967 and a negotiated solution to the Palestinian refugee issue.

Olmert has had no publicly announced trips abroad recently.

Last week, Yedioth Aharonot reported that Israel and Saudi Arabia have been conducting secret negotiations.

‘Secret negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia,’ the newspaper headlined its story reporting that contacts had begun during the recent 34-day war in Lebanon between Israel and Shia militant group Hezbollah.

Asked whether there were secret talks going on with Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted as saying: ‘I don’t have to answer every question’.

Olmert was quoted as saying, however, he was ‘very impressed with various acts and statements connected with Saudi Arabia, both those that were made publicly and others as well.

‘I am very impressed with King Abdullah’s insight and sense of responsibility,’ he added, when asked about whether he regarded a Saudi peace initiative favourably.

Israeli premier denies secret meeting with Saudi leader

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied on Monday that he met in secret with a leading Saudi official.

‘I did not meet with the Saudi king and I didn’t meet with any official to warrant a sensation in the media,’ Olmert told the Yediot Ahronot daily.

Quoting ‘several’ high-ranking Israeli government sources, the daily reported Monday morning that Olmert met 10 days ago at an undisclosed location with a top Saudi official, possibly King Abdullah himself.

If correct, it would have been the first ever meeting between an Israeli premier and a high-ranking Saudi representative.

According to Yediot, the talks focussed on the revival of the Saudi peace initiative of 2002, which at the Arab League Summit in Beirut of that year proposed recognition by the Arab world in return for an Israeli withdrawal to its borders of before the 1967 Middle East war.

The sides also reportedly discussed the regional threat by Iran’s nuclear programme.