CAIRO: In an effort to bolster new US peace initiatives, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states have begun pressing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to stop suicide bombings and other attacks against Israelis, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Faisal said Friday.

Faisal said that the Saudi leader, Crown Prince Abdullah, concluded after meeting President Bush at his ranch in Texas last month that the American president was ready to make a credible push to rejuvenate the peace process after 20 months of violence.

In “constant” calls, Saudi officials have been telling Arafat and Palestinian officials that if the US initiative is to take hold, the activities of groups such as Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as Hamas, and Islamic Jihad must be curbed, Faisal said.

“We all have been counselling that these efforts (suicide bombings) are not helpful to the peace process. ... Everybody is in constant contact,” Faisal said in an interview with US newspaper correspondents. “The US can pursue the vision and restrain Israel. ... The Arab countries have to make clear that their pursuit of peace is unfettered. ... Violence has to stop on both sides.”

Similar pressure has also reportedly come from Egypt. Earlier this week, the Arabic language Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported that when Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher visited Arafat in Ramallah, he told the Palestinian leader that it was time to make a clear choice between pursuing peace or pursuing the uprising.

The US, he noted, had helped negotiate an end to Arafat’s confinement in Ramallah, and the standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem had concluded peacefully. At the same time, Arafat had made his clearest denunciation yet of suicide attacks, and arrested 16 members of Hamas.

Faisal said he hoped the Israelis accept those actions as gestures of good faith from Arafat, and not launch a massive retaliation now, or in response to any other attacks that might occur. Palestinian police and security agencies are in tatters after the recent Israeli military action in the West Bank, and will not be able to effectively stop assaults on Israel until they are rebuilt, he said.

“The Palestinian Authority needs to be reconstituted. ... If (Arafat) is going to arrest people, he needs a police force,” Faisal said. “He, in turn, would be responsible for preventing attacks on innocent Israelis. ... Both sides have to stop what they are doing” to feed the cycle of attacks and retribution.

Faisal said that as the climate improves, he hopes that the Israeli public will reject the types of security-oriented solutions that Sharon has proposed,. “What Mr Sharon is providing them,” Faisal said, “is a mirage in the desert.” —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.