Israel, Lebanon Suspend Troop Pullout Talks

Israel and Lebanon on Thursday suspended their stalemated talks on Israeli troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon, ending almost all hope of coordinated action in that region.

The suspension also increased fears that Israel’s pullout will be followed by a violent struggle among Lebanese factions to fill the resulting power vacuum.

The two sides blamed each other for the breakdown in the talks, which have been held under U.N. auspices at the Lebanese frontier town of Naqoura, where the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon has its headquarters.

‘They Refused’

“There is no use in attending any more Naqoura talks as long as the Lebanese are stuck to their position,” Brig. Gen. Amos Gilboa, head of the Israeli delegation, said. “We offered them, generously, to coordinate our pullout from the Sidon area. They refused.”

However, the acting spokesman for the Lebanese side, Maj. Marum Mahaud, said Israel scuttled the negotiations by refusing to present a timetable for the second and third stages of the withdrawal.

“Lebanon cannot coordinate in a fragmented plan which the other side has put forward,” he said. “For example, who guarantees the future implementation of the future stages of the withdrawal?”

The Naqoura talks began Nov. 8 in hopes of getting an agreement between the two countries on security arrangements that Israel said it required before pulling its troops from south Lebanon. The Israelis invaded in June, 1982, with the goal of driving out the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Talks Began Nov. 8

The talks made no progress, however. Ten days ago, the Israeli Cabinet approved a phased, unilateral withdrawal, beginning with the evacuation of the area around the port city of Sidon that is to be completed by Feb. 18.

The Cabinet voted to decide separately on the timing of two later stages of the pullout, although Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin have said they intend to have all Israeli troops out of Lebanon by sometime this summer.

Israeli negotiators returned to Naqoura on Tuesday. They proposed that Lebanon formally request an expanded role for the United Nations in the withdrawal zone, to help coordinate the pullback and guard against an outbreak of factional violence--such as that which followed Israel’s 1982 withdrawal from the Shouf Mountains on the outskirts of Beirut.

Lebanese Reluctant

However, the Lebanese are reluctant to be a part of any open-ended withdrawal agreement, lest it appear to infringe on Lebanese sovereignty. Lebanese spokesmen note that the Israeli plan calls for Israeli advisers to remain in the region to work with the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli-backed militia that Jerusalem insists take charge of security across a narrow buffer zone immediately north of the Israeli frontier.

Gilboa, the Israeli delegation leader, charged that Syria is behind the Lebanese reluctance.

“It’s more important for the Lebanese to bow to the Syrian will than to take care for the safety and welfare of their own population,” he said in an interview with Israel radio.

But Mahaud said Israel is trying to stir up trouble among southern Lebanon’s mixed Muslim, Christian and Palestinian population.

“It is your officials--they are saying maybe some fighting or clashes will occur,” he told Israeli reporters at Naqoura. “It is not people in the area.

“We hope that nothing will happen,” Mahaud added.