Baker Puts Pressure on Shamir : Diplomacy: He says invitations to Mideast peace talks could be issued without Israel’s approval. Jordan becomes fourth Arab government to OK U.S. peace plan.
JERUSALEM — Secretary of State James A. Baker III, armed with endorsements from four Arab states, arrived Sunday in Israel for high-stakes talks with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and sounded a warning that Washington and Moscow might decide to issue invitations to a Mideast peace conference without waiting for Israel’s acceptance of a U.S. peace plan.
The secretary of state met for 90 minutes Sunday evening with Shamir and planned to meet again this morning with the prime minister and other officials.
Baker said he hopes a peace conference can be called soon and that “our preference†is to do so after getting the go-ahead from all the parties involved, including Israel.
However, clearly going out of his way to increase pressure on Israel to respond quickly, he twice publicly raised the possibility that President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev--who will hold a summit meeting next week in Moscow--might decide to arrange the conference even if Israel has yet to sign on.
“We’ve always indicated that (issuing invitations without the approval of all the parties) would be something we might pursue. That doesn’t mean that we’ve decided to do it because we haven’t. But at some point, I think you have to consider it,†Baker told reporters just before starting talks with three local Palestinian leaders.
If the Americans and the Soviets issued a formal call for a peace conference with the approval of the Arab states but not Israel, Israel would have to attend or face a serious public relations and diplomatic problem. Roles would be reversed; Arab states would appear forthcoming and Israel would appear rejective.
The Bush Administration has grown impatient with Israel’s continuing program to settle the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and its seeming foot-dragging on peace proposals. The Administration has left in doubt whether it will support increased foreign aid requests, including a $10-billion loan guarantee to provide housing and jobs for new Soviet immigrants.
Baker’s warning, issued first in vague terms in Jordan and then repeated on arrival in Israel, appeared to aim at forestalling any attempt by Shamir and his government to delay movement toward a peace conference.
Earlier Sunday, Jordan became the fourth Arab government, behind Syria, Egypt and Lebanon, to endorse the American peace proposal.
“When the conference is there, Jordan will be among the first to attend,†said King Hussein after talks with Baker at his palace. “We are ready to attend, and we are glad (the conference) will be a comprehensive one.â€
Baker met alone with Shamir at the prime minister’s government complex. He gave Shamir details of the letter sent by Syria’s President Hafez Assad accepting Bush’s terms for getting talks under way. After the meeting, Israeli officials played down the evident pressure and said they would need time to study Assad’s response.
“No deadline has been set. There was no specific request for a deadline from Baker,†said government spokesman Yossi Olmert.
Baker will meet this morning with Shamir, Defense Minister Moshe Arens and Foreign Minister David Levy before departing for Malaysia on his way to Mongolia and then the summit in Moscow. Shamir is expected to convene his Cabinet today, leaving open the possibility that his government will reach some decision on Bush’s proposals.
Israeli officials took pains to dampen expectations of quick action. A senior Foreign Ministry official said Israel would seek guarantees that Syria will talk face to face with Israel and not hide behind a wall of outside participants, the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations.
Israel also wants assurances that Assad has set no conditions on his attendance--specifically that he has not been guaranteed the return of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured during the 1967 Middle East War. And it insists that the Palestine Liberation Organization be excluded from the talks.
“We want assurances that there is indeed new thinking among the Arabs,†the official said. “If the list of assurances is kosher, we can do business.â€
Officials in Baker’s entourage speculated that Israel might give in on procedural issues but raise new obstacles, prolonging the give and take before a conference begins.
Bush has proposed that Israel and Arab states come together at a conference under the sponsorship of the United States and the Soviet Union, along with a U.N. observer. An opening session would then give way to bilateral talks between Israel and each Arab government and the Palestinians.
Israel has objected to U.N. participation as well as the reconvening of the opening, international forum.
President Bush, speaking in Turkey before hearing of Sunday’s developments in Amman or the evening talks in Jerusalem, gave an upbeat assessment of what he said is Baker’s “step-by-step progress.â€
“The report we got was pretty favorable out of the Saudis,†he said after Saudi Arabia announced that it would end its boycott of companies doing business with Israel if Israel stops its settlements in the occupied territories.
At the same time, he denied that his campaign to obtain successive Arab agreements to a peace conference is pressuring Israel to join in such talks.
“It’s not a question of pressuring,†he said, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to Istanbul from Ankara on the final stop of a nine-day visit to France, Britain, Greece and Turkey. “It’s a question of reasoning and taking this, what I keep calling a new credibility for the United States in the Middle East itself and using that to encourage what is a very reasonable and important step to peace,†he said.
Baker met with the Palestinian representatives at the U.S. Consulate here. Two of the Palestinians, Faisal Husseini and Zacharia Agha, are associated with the PLO. The third, university educator Hanan Ashrawi, although pro-PLO, is considered independent.
Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are said to be split between those who want to attend talks even without guarantees that a Palestinian state will result and others who believe that the Palestinians can ill afford to reject any negotiating effort, Arab analysts say.
In Tunisia, a PLO official said the group had dropped its insistence on sending its own delegates to the conference but wants to name the Palestinians who do go.
“We accept President Bush’s proposals, and the PLO is ready to form its delegation to the peace conference from Palestinians from the occupied territories and outside the occupied territories . . . ,†said the official, Bassam abu Sharif.
Times staff writer James Gerstenzang, in Istanbul, Turkey, contributed to this story.
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