AMMAN - Jordan's King Abdullah II on Thursday pressed visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a two-state solution to help end the conflict with the Palestinians, the palace said.
"The king demanded the Israeli government declare its commitment to the two-state solution, accept the Arab peace initiative and take practical steps to achieve progress," a palace statement said after the two leaders met in Amman.
"The international community has agreed there is no alternative to the two-state solution and any other solution is unacceptable because it will not achieve a just peace; creating more conflicts," the statement added.
Netanyahu, who left Amman again immediately after the talks, has so far refused to publicly endorse the idea of a Palestinian state, a bedrock principle of international plans to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The 2002 Arab initiative calls for Israel to withdraw from all Arab lands occupied in 1967 in exchange for normalisation of ties.
"The Middle East is going through a critical stage that requires a swift action to end the conflict," the king told Netanyahu, according to the statement.
The Israeli leader arrived earlier Thursday on an unannounced visit to Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1994, ahead of his trip to the United States next week.
It was Netanyahu's second trip abroad since taking office last month, just three days after he met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm Al-Sheikh
His meetings with Israel's two allies in the Arab world precede his trip to Washington for talks with President Barack Obama where he is expected to unveil his plan for regional peace, according to officials.
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