Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, has been invited to Israel by that country’s president, Moshe Katsav, to discuss the normalisation of relations between the two countries. Prince Abdullah has proposed the normalisation of ties with the Jewish state once Israel evacuates occupied Arab land.
Abdullah was quoted in the New York Timeslast week as saying Riyadh favored Arab states normalising relations with Israel if it carried out a full withdrawal from territories captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
He said he had written a speech along those lines to deliver to the Arab summit slated for March 27-28 in Beirut, but shelved it due to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hard line against the Palestinians as the Middle East crisis slides deeper into violence.
The Saudi crown prince has made clear he disagrees with Washington's policy toward Israel and has criticised the United States for not doing enough to oppose Israeli "aggression" against the Palestinians.
Abdullah has been running the kingdom's day-to-day affairs since King Fahd, his half-brother, suffered a stroke in 1995.
Assured of the backing of tribes and the religious establishment, the crown prince has taken on many of the king's functions and sought to steer the country's foreign policy in new directions.
Born in Riyadh in 1923, Abdullah is the 13th son of King Abdul Aziz, founder of Saudi Arabia.
AFP