Bad weather forced Jordan's King Abdullah to cancel plans to fly to the occupied West Bank on Sunday for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the president said. "We postponed the visit," Abbas told reporters at his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "Bad weather was the only reason."
Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah, added that "arrangements are being made to hold this meeting in a few days' time." King Abdullah is scheduled to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday on the sidelines of a Nobel peace laureates' conference in Petra, Jordan.
The monarch's talks with Israel and the Palestinians were expected to focus on an Arab League peace plan offering Israel normal relations with the Arab world in return for a Palestinian state and full withdrawal from land seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
On Thursday, the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt, acting as an Arab League working group, briefed Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on the peace initiative in Cairo.
The working group is expected to send a delegation to Israel in the coming weeks. Abbas said the plan was "the best opportunity for peace between the Palestinians and Israelis" and that further meetings would be held to discuss it.