Prime Minister Ehud Olmert secretly met about 10 days ago with a senior member of the Saudi royal family, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Monday morning.
According to several sources, the person Olmert met with was Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah himself. Other sources implied that the meeting was held with a different senior figure in the kingdom.
Only a number of Israelis were involved in the secret meeting, which was welcomed by senior American officials.
This appears to be the first time an Israeli prime minister holds a direct meeting with such a senior member of the Saudi royal family.
Saudi Arabia is responsible for a peace initiative, according to which Israel will withdraw to the 1967 borders and in exchange will gain peace agreements and normalization with all Arab state.
It is also part of a new peace initiative , being promoted both by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah.
The plan's details are expected to be presented during discussions at the United Nations headquarters in New York. As part of the new initiative, the borders of the Palestinian state will be determined first, after which diplomatic talks will be held.
The Egyptian and Jordanian leaders recently met in Amman and announced that "the unilateral solutions have proven to be a failure in terms of dealing with the problems in the region. They cannot constitute an alternative for the overall solutions.
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