Saudis will seriously consider attending U.S.-backed Mideast peace conference later this year

JERUSALEM — Saudi Arabia said Wednesday it would seriously consider attending a Middle East peace conference proposed by the Bush administration for later this year, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began laying the ground work for the regional meeting.

The proposed gathering is intended to revive the peace process and would include Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states viewed as moderate by the United States.

Speaking during a rare joint visit by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Jeddah, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said his government would "look very closely and very hard at attending" if the conference dealt with "issues of real substance, not form."

Saud also said Saudi Arabia would explore opening diplomatic relations with the Shiite-led government in Iraq, an endorsement long sought by Washington. Saudi Arabia's Sunni rulers have had frosty relations with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government and has not hidden its suspicions that al-Maliki does not have the interests of Iraq's Sunni minority at heart.

A meeting between Israeli and Saudi representatives would be a major diplomatic breakthrough. Though Israel and Saudi Arabia are both U.S. allies, representatives of the countries have never officially met and Saudi Arabia has never recognized the Jewish state.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement Wednesday that Israel hopes "many Arab countries will attend this international meeting, including Saudi Arabia."

Rice arrived in Israel Wednesday as part of a wider tour of U.S. regional allies. It is her first visit since the Islamic group Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June. Since then, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has run the West Bank with a moderate government led by his Fatah movement, and has won broad international backing while Hamas remains largely isolated.

Olmert's office said a regional peace conference would also be able to "grant an umbrella to the bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians."

Speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem, Rice said she was "encouraged by the attitude that I have seen here among all of the parties about the prospects of this international meeting."

However, Rice said in response to a question about Saudi participation, "I think it's too early ... to issue invitations and certainly too early to expect people to say whether they will attend."

Rice's meets with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem on Wednesday and with leaders of Abbas' U.S.-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank on Thursday.