Israel ready for 'serious' talks with Arabs: Peres
"If the Arab side puts forth serious proposals, Israel will in turn offer its own proposals with a view to holding serious negotiations and to finding common ground," Peres was quoted by army radio as saying.
"We should be careful not to miss out on this opportunity," Peres stressed.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Peres was speaking amid efforts to advance the peace plan, first presented by Saudi Arabia in 2002 and revived at an Arab League summit in March.
The plan would offer a normalisation of relations in return for full withdrawal from Arab lands seized in 1967, the creation of a Palestinian state and the return of Palestinian refugees.
The league tasked Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries that have made peace with Israel, to work to convince the Jewish state to accept the plan.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met her Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts in Cairo on Thursday, and stressed the important role the Arab world could play in helping to achieve peace.
On Saturday, Palestinian foreign minister Ziad Abu Amr met his Jordanian counterpart Abdel Ilah Khatib and other officials in Amman to discuss the initiative.
The two "reviewed bilateral relations as well as ways to advance the peace process to where the Palestinian people's ambitions of an independent state are achieved," Jordan's state news agency Petra reported.
Abu Amr, an independent and the first Palestinian foreign minister to visit Jordan since the Islamist group Hamas formed a government in March 2006, thanked King Abdullah II for his efforts on behalf of the Palestinians.
He is to travel to Brussels on Sunday for talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Khatib stressed the need for Arabs and the wider world to "make every effort... to relaunch the peace process through negotiations between the two sides and to achieve a just and comprehensive peace."
On Sunday, King Abdullah will visit the West Bank town of Ramallah for talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
A palace official said the king "will discuss Arab and international efforts aimed at bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to negotiations on the Arab peace plan and a two-state solution."