Arab Peace Initiative of King Abdullah

The foreign policies of Saudi King Abdullah, who passed away on Thursday, translated into a powerful assertion of Saudi Arabia's influence around the Middle East.

He floated the idea of the Arab Peace Initiative when he was crown prince at the 2002 Arab League summit that was held in Beirut.

The initiative offered Israel blanket recognition from 22 Arab states in return for an independent state for the Palestinians through Israel's withdrawal from lands it captured in 1967.

Israel's former President Shimon Peres said Friday that Abdullah's death was "a real loss for the peace of the Middle East."

"He was an experienced leader and a wise king. He had the courage ... to stand up and introduce a peace program for the Middle East," said Peres, referring to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.

"I'm not sure that we could have accepted all the items in the peace process but the spirit, the strength and the wisdom invested in it" led to a process that serves still as "a powerful base for making peace," the former Israeli president told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

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