Arab leaders have relaunched a peace plan that offers Israel full ties in exchange for Palestinian statehood, signalling to US President Donald Trump that they are ready to engage if he tries to broker a broader Middle East peace.
Jordan hosted the one-day Arab summit on Wednesday and said it sent a a "message of peace" - though one that could put new pressure on Israel to withdraw from lands it occupied in the 1967 Mideast war.
The summit came ahead of White House meetings in coming weeks between Trump and three Arab leaders - Jordan's King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Trump hasn't yet formulated a policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but has said he is eager to broker a deal. His initial comments, including a campaign promise to move the US Embassy in Israel to contested Jerusalem and suggestions that there are alternatives to a two-state solution, caused alarm among some Arab leaders.
However, an embassy move no longer appears imminent, and some Trump administration officials have since endorsed the two-state solution.
Trump's international envoy, Jason Greenblatt, attended the summit and held talks with Abbas and the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt and Qatar.
Greenblatt affirmed Trump's belief that an Israeli-Palestinian deal "is not only possible, but would reverberate positively throughout the region and the world," the US Embassy in Jordan said. The envoy focused on making tangible progress, a statement said.
In reaffirming the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, the summit undercut Israel's proposal of a regional peace in which normalisation with some Arab countries would precede a deal with the Palestinians. Abbas has vehemently opposed this idea, fearing it would further weaken Palestinian negotiating positions.
The Palestinians want to set up a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in 1967.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is willing to negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood, but rejects a partition of Jerusalem and, like his predecessors, has expanded Israeli settlements on occupied lands.
Netanyahu has not formally abandoned his stated support for the two-state solution, but has stopped mentioning it in his speeches since Trump was elected. Instead, he has made vague statements about seeking a region-wide peace agreement.
