Cairo, Egypt ? Palestinians will not back a U.S. plan for an international conference on the Mideast conflict until Israel leaves land seized during the uprising, a Palestinian Cabinet minister has said.

“The conference can … only take place once the Israelis have complied with (United Nations) Security Council resolutions and withdraw from Palestinian areas occupied since the intefadeh (uprising),” Nabil Shaath told The Associated Press late Thursday.

Shaath said that if a conference were held while Israeli forces were in Palestinian areas, it would lose focus on key issues, particularly “a final result on permanent status and the end of all (Israeli) occupation of 1967.”

Except for the holy city of Bethlehem, Israeli forces have withdrawn from most of the West Bank areas they seized in operation that began March 29 after a wave of suicide bombings in Israel.

Shaath also said the Palestinians would not agree to a conference until international observers were in the Palestinian territories. Israel has repeatedly rejected such international monitoring.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told reporters Friday in Ramallah that he welcomed the conference proposal “but we have still not agreed to it.” He said he would consult Arab leaders before deciding.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed the conference Thursday, saying it would probably be in Europe early summer and would be attended by foreign ministers. The United Nations, European Union and Russia have endorsed the idea.

A goal of the conference would be to clear “the political way forward” for a Palestinian state, Powell said. The meeting would also deal with security, economic reform and humanitarian issues.

Shaath told the AP the conference would need to stipulate a timeframe for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and the implementation of a settlement.

Israeli government spokesman Gideon Meir said Friday that Israel would have to hear more details before deciding whether to attend such a conference.

The Arab response was difficult to gauge Friday, a Muslim holiday. In Cairo, Arab League spokesman Hisham Youssef said he could not comment on the conference plan as Arab governments were awaiting details from the Americans.

Arab League foreign ministers are due to meet in Egypt next week to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian situation as a follow-up to the Arab summit in March, Youssef said. Saudi official sources said Crown Prince Abdullah, who proposed the summit peace initiative, will visit Cairo to meet Arafat and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Shaath said any conference should use Abdullah’s peace proposal as its terms of reference. The proposal, which was endorsed by the entire summit, offered Israel normal relations with Arab states in return for Israel’s withdrawing from Arab territory captured in the 1967 Mideast War.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ruled out a return to 1967 boundaries, but accepted that Abdullah’s plan included “positive elements.”

In Lebanon, the An-Nahar newspaper predicted Friday that Arafat faced tough decisions now that Israeli troops had withdrawn from his Ramallah headquarters, allowing him to move around the West Bank for the first time in months.

Columnist Rajeh Khoury praised Arafat for withstanding the Israeli siege, but said he would “discover that holding out at the negotiating table is more difficult than holding out inside his headquarters.”

Arafat was freed Thursday following a U.S.-brokered deal that saw six Palestinians including four connected to the slaying of the Israeli tourism minister jailed in Jericho under British and U.S. supervision.