HIGHLIGHTS:Developing Unified Arab Position Before Mideast Conference, Top on Agenda||Crown Prince phones Bush||Khartoum Hands over Man Suspected of Firing Missile at U.S. Plane in Saudi Arabia|| STORY: Israeli injustices against Palestinians must end and an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital should be formed, the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Sudan said today.

Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir, who began a two-day visit, met in the Red Sea city of Jiddah and discussed the Mideast situation and bilateral relations, the official Saudi Press Agency said.

"The injustice that the Palestinian people are being subjected to of siege, killings and destruction of their (infrastructure) by Israeli occupation forces should end," the agency quoted the leaders as saying.

A Palestinian state must be established with Jerusalem as its capital, they said.

Diplomats said the leaders discussed developing a unified Arab position on the Mideast crisis before a US-proposed peace conference is held this summer.

Abdullah also phoned US President George W. Bush on Sunday for talks on the Mideast crisis and restarting the peace process, the agency reported.

Saudi Arabia is playing a key role in trying to end the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.

Abdullah, floated a plan offering Israel normal relations with Arab states if it withdrew from Arab land occupied during the 1967 Mideast war. Arab leaders adopted the initiative during a March summit in Beirut.

Last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal met with U.S President George W. Bush, who is expected soon to outline his Mideast peace proposals.

Earlier today, Saudi and Yemeni officials urged America to develop a framework "for a final solution to the Middle East conflict."

Meanwhile, Sudan says it has given Saudi authorities a Sudanese man who claims to have fired a surface-to-air missile at a US warplane at a Saudi air base.

Sudan's Interior Ministry today said in a statement that the man admitted firing a missile at a plane taking off from Prince Sultan Air Base, south of the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

On Wednesday, a US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a Sudanese man suspected of being an al-Qaida cell leader had acknowledged shooting a shoulder-fired SA-7 surface-to-air missile at an American plane taking off from the base.

Fears that a missile had been fired at a US plane in Saudi Arabia surfaced in May after Saudi security guards found a missile launcher tube about two miles from a runway at the desert air base.

The Sudanese Interior Ministry statement said the man snuck back into Sudan from Saudi Arabia. The statement did not identify the man or say how he returned to Sudan.

It said the man had an unspecified number of Saudi accomplices, who had been taken into custody and given authorities similar confessions to the Sudanese.

The hand over follows official Saudi-Sudanese negotiations to have the man face trial in Saudi Arabia.

About 4,500 US troops and an unspecified number of American warplanes use the Saudi base. The presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, since the 1991 Gulf War is one of Osama bin Laden's stated reasons for attacks on Americans.

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Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir, who began a two-day visit, met in the Red Sea city of Jiddah and discussed the Mideast situation and bilateral relations, the official Saudi Press Agency said. (June, 16, 2002).