A Beirut Declaration, read by Lebanon's Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh near the close of the two-day meeting, demanded the lifting of UN sanctions on Iraq imposed for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and added: "We stress our total rejection of any attack on Iraq."

The declaration asserted that Israel must accept a Palestinian state and agree to a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugee problem in line with UN Resolution 194 passed in 1948 that calls for the refugees to be repatriated or compensated. In return the Arab countries would "consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, establishing normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace."

The following is an official translation of the full text of a Saudi peace plan adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut:

The Council of Arab States at the Summit Level at its 14th Ordinary Session,

Reaffirming the resolution taken in June 1996 at the Cairo Extraordinary Arab Summit that a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab countries, to be achieved in accordance with international legality, and requiring a comparable commitment on the part of the Israeli government, (and)

Having listened to the statement made by his Royal Highness Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia... calling for full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967, in implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, reaffirmed by the Madrid Conference of 1991 and the land-for-peace principle, and Israel's acceptance of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in return for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel,

Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council:

1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.
2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:
   1. Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.
   2. Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
   3. The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
3. Consequently, the Arab states affirm the following:
   1. [They will] consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel providing security for all the states of the region.
   2. [They will] establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.
4. [The Summit] rejects all forms of Palestinian partition which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.
5. [The Summit] calls upon the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative in order to safeguard the prospects for peace and stop the further shedding of blood, enabling the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighborliness and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity.
6. Invites the international community and all countries and organisations to support this initiative.
7. Asks the chairman of the summit to form a special committee composed of some of its concerned member states and the Secretary General of the League of Arab States to pursue the necessary contacts to gain support for this initiative at all levels, particularly from the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Muslim states and the European Union.

   Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, said that the Arabs were embracing peace with his country's Middle East initiative so that the United States might push Israel in this direction. He said that Israel could obtain security and peace with all its neighbors, but had to offer the Arabs the same.

   At least 20 Israelis were killed in the latest suicide bombing in the seaside resort of Natanya. "It would be the ultimate tragedy for these people who have suffered in their history, such a long and arduous history in which suffering was so awful in many instances, to... become the perpetrators of suffering on a gallant people like the Palestinians," Prince Saud said. "The actions of Israel are creating these suicide bombers and it is that violence that has to stop, the demeaning of the Palestinian people has to stop."