"It's not an official agreement," the veteran Palestinian leader told reporters here, in his first comments on the initiative, which deals with all key issues of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"It's activists from both sides - Israelis and Palestinians with international participation," he only said.
Arafat nevertheless said he supported any initiative aimed at achieving peace between the two sides.
"Our policy is not to hamper any attempt at reaching the peace of the brave I had put in place with my late partner Rabin," he said in reference to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with whom he received the Nobel Peace Prize for the 1993 Oslo accords.
"I support any effort, including by these Israeli groups in favour of the peace of the brave," he added.
Although full details of the blueprint thrashed out over the weekend in Jordan have yet to be revealed, MP Haim Oron of Israel's left-wing Meretz party said it included an acceptance by the Palestinians that Israel was a Jewish state and there could be no right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Switzerland has been overseeing the talks between the likes of former Palestinian minister Yasser Abed Rabbo and ex-Israeli justice minister Yossi Beilin.
The "Geneva agreement" is likely to be signed in Switzerland during the coming month, possibly on November 4, the eighth anniversary of Rabin's assassination by a Jewish extremist.
Abed Rabbo had said that the Palestinian Authority approved the blueprint.
According to press reports, the plan was drafted with Arafat's blessing but was not officially endorsed by the Palestinian leader, who is widely seen in Israel as responsible for the ongoing cycle of violence.
Israeli critics of the initiative, which was spearheaded by doves - such as Beilin, former parliament speaker Avraham Burg and ex-opposition Labour party leader Amram Mitzna - argue that the plan is a challenge to the state's authority and destabilises its action.
None of the participants have claimed that the plan had any kind of official value and insist the move was chiefly aimed at touching a chord with Israel's public opinion.
"Does anyone truly believe that Sharon is in the midst of serious negotiations and Yossi Beilin is hampering him by bringing an agreement with someone else?" Beilin said on Israeli radio.
"Even if it's not today or tomorrow, within a relatively short time span, the Israeli public will become convinced that this is the best plan for it," he added.
According to the details available on the initiative, the "Geneva agreement" provides for shared sovereignty on disputed areas of Jerusalem and gives the Palestinians 97,5% of the West Bank.
In exchange, Palestinian refugees have to waive their right of return to areas now incorporated in the state of Israel as it was founded in 1948. – Sapa-AFP.
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