CAIRO (Reuters):

Arab foreign ministers asked Egypt and Jordan yesterday to contact Israelis and try to persuade them to accept an Arab peace plan offering normal relations in return for land and a Palestinian state.

Egypt and Jordan already have relations with Israel and the Israeli Government had hoped that the Arabs would include other Arab governments in the Arab League working group set up to promote the plan with the Jewish state.

But the Arab League named only Egypt and Jordan as the members of the group which will contact the Israelis. Another working group of eight Arab foreign ministers and the Arab League chief will make broader contacts elsewhere.

"There is no free normalisation (of relations)," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa told a news conference after a special ministerial meeting on the peace plan.

Asked when contacts would start, he said: "It could be tomorrow or within a week. It will be up to Egypt and Jordan."

A spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would give the Arab delegation a hearing.

"We will be happy to listen to the Arab initiative ... We will not dictate to anybody what they need to say to us, and we will express our positions and will be happy to do so to the representatives," said spokeswoman Miri Eisin.

The Arab peace plan, relaunched at an Arab summit in the Saudi capital Riyadh last month, offers Israel relations with all Arab states in return for land captured in the Middle East war of 1967 and a settlement for Palestinian refugees.