Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday put the onus on Israel to break a deadlock with Arab nations as he held talks with a US administration under pressure to launch a new peace push.
Mubarak held a closed-door meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a day ahead of a summit with President Barack Obama. It will the first White House meeting in five years for Mubarak, who had tense relations with President George W. Bush.
Obama has shown new deference to the octogenarian Egyptian leader, with his administration saying it wanted to consult with him before launching any major new initiative in the Middle East.
But US hopes to push forward the peace plan before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts later this week look increasingly slim as Israel and Arab states both insist that the other make the first move.
Obama is pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-leaning government to stop Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank while asking Arab states to take at least symbolic steps to reconcile with Israel.
In remarks published Monday, Mubarak said he told Obama in June -- when the US leader chose Cairo as the backdrop for a landmark speech reaching out to the Islamic world -- that Israel must freeze settlements.
"I explained to President Obama in Cairo that the Arab initiative offers the recognition of Israel and normalization of ties with it after, and not before, a just and lasting peace is achieved," Mubarak told the state-controlled Al-Ahram newspaper.
The Arab League in 2002 endorsed a peace plan calling for Arab states to recognize Israel in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from the land it occupied in war in 1967 and an equitable resolution for Palestinian refugees.
Only two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, have signed peace treaties with the Jewish state while some other Arab countries have trade relations.
"Some Arab countries that exchanged representatives and trade offices might think of reopening these offices if Israel committed itself to stop settlement expansion and to resume final status peace negotiations," Mubarak said.
Mubarak on Monday met for more than an hour with some 20 Jewish leaders on the peace process and also on Iran, which both Israel and Egypt fear is developing nuclear weapons, participants said.
Martin Raffel, senior vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, described the meeting as "very friendly" and said he believed Mubarak "clearly is committed" to moving ahead with the peace process.
But he said the Jewish leaders also pressed Mubarak to find ways to reassure the Israeli public "that the Arab world is serious about trying to achieve peace with Israel."
"If you're asking Israel to make hard decisions," Raffel told AFP, "the Israeli people have to begin to feel that there is a positive change happening with the broader Arab world beyond Egypt and Jordan."
Mubarak's position is in line with other Arab nations. Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia, which proposed the 2002 initiative, last month in Washington ruled out a "step by step" diplomatic approach with Israel.
Relations between Cairo and Washington were tense under Bush, whose support of Israel and invasion of Iraq were unpopular but who also pressed Mubarak to release dissidents and hold free elections.
Egyptian dissident Ayman Nur, who was freed earlier this year after three years in prison, accused Obama of neglecting pledges to support political reform.
Nur, speaking to AFP in Cairo, called it a "setback in the promotion of the values Obama pledged to support during his election campaign."
"It betrays American values," he said.
The young lawyer mounted an unprecedented challenge to Mubarak in the 2005 presidential election before being jailed on forgery charges many saw as trumped up.