Kuwait has welcomed a Saudi Arabian offer to forge ties with the Jewish state if it quit lands seized in 1967, a newspaper reported today.
Kuwait had vowed to be the last Arab state to normalise ties with Israel.
"If Israel implemented all [United Nations] resolutions and all the treaties it forged and withdrew from all Arab lands, including (East) Jerusalem, then all the Arab countries will have a different say," Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah told al-Rai al-Aamnewspaper.
"If Israel presented a favourable solution acceptable to its neighbours, then our view will be that of its neighbours if they accept it," added the minister in response to remarks to the New York Timesby Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah.
Crown Prince Abdullah said in the New York Timeshe had been ready to push for normalisation of Arab ties with Israel in return for Israel's full withdrawal to the 1967 borders. He said he changed his mind because of Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon's hardline policies toward Palestinians.
For the past 17 months, Palestinians have been waging a revolt against occupation in which at least 885 Palestinians and 273 Israelis have been killed.
Although some Gulf Arab countries have in recent years started to forge mainly trade links with Israel, oil-rich Kuwait has no direct ties with the Jewish state.
It also shuns direct links with Palestinian President Mr Yasser Arafat since he appeared to side with Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and seven-month occupation.
But it backs Palestinian demands for an independent state with a capital in Arab East Jerusalem and wants Israel to withdraw from the Syrian Golan Heights.