U.S., Soviets to Discuss Mideast : Two Days of Talks Will Begin Tuesday in Vienna

In the first comprehensive Mideast consultations between the superpowers in almost a decade, U.S. and Soviet experts will meet Tuesday in Vienna to exchange views on the Iran-Iraq war, Lebanon and the Arab-Israeli dispute, the State Department announced Wednesday.

But the two-day talks, which will also include Afghanistan, “should not be seen as negotiations, and we do not anticipate any agreements,” cautioned department spokesman Bernard Kalb--apparently hoping to reassure Israel that Washington and Moscow would not make any deal at Israel’s expense.

President Reagan, saying that the purpose would be to avoid misunderstandings, first proposed U.S.-Soviet talks on various “regional issues” in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly last September. Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko agreed last month in Geneva to begin the regional consultations with talks on the Mideast.

On Wednesday, Reagan declared that this week’s talks in Amman between King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, appear to have advanced the cause of Mideast peace.

Although no details of the Hussein-Arafat agreement have been made public, Reagan said as he left Washington for a vacation at his ranch near Santa Barbara: “The little we know about it, it seems as if some progress has been made. We’re being optimistic about it.”

Later, a senior Administration official traveling with Reagan cautiously characterized the Amman accord as constructive and “a welcome step in the right direction.”

‘Land for Peace’ Idea

The official, who spoke with reporters at the Point Mugu Naval Air Station in California on condition he not be identified, particularly welcomed what he interpreted as the accord’s reported “land for peace” framework for resolving Mideast turmoil.

He said this “implies acceptance,” without directly saying so, of U.N. Resolution 242, which calls for recognition of Israel’s sovereignty and borders by the Arabs in exchange for territory it has occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967. The United States has insisted on acceptance of the resolution as a basis for direct negotiations involving the PLO.

At the Vienna talks, Richard W. Murphy, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, will represent the United States and Vladimir P. Polyakov, chief of the Foreign Ministry’s Near East Division, will lead the Soviet delegation. Murphy will be accompanied by a few aides but the U.S. delegation “will be small,” Kalb said.

No Policy Shift

The talks will be “merely an exchange of views,” Kalb said. “They do not represent any change in the U.S. position regarding issues affecting the region, nor do we expect them to result in changes in Soviet positions.” Israel has expressed concern that the talks might result in an increase in Soviet influence in the region.

The last time U.S. and Soviet delegations discussed Afghanistan was in 1982. At that time, the talks dealt with the Soviet intervention, which began in 1979, and they broke down without producing any results.

The last time the two nations discussed the full range of Mideast issues was in the mid-1970s--early in the Administration of President Jimmy Carter--when they explored the possibility of convening an international conference to attempt to settle longstanding Arab-Israeli differences.

Soviet Influence Recedes

However, those talks ended after the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made his dramatic trip to Jerusalem in 1977, launching the Israeli-Egyptian peace process in which Carter served as mediator for an eventual peace agreement while the Soviets receded into the background.

Reagan’s comments on the Hussein-Arafat talks seemed somewhat more upbeat than the State Department assessment. “If the reported agreement reflects movement toward the negotiating table . . . obviously, it is an important step,” Kalb said. He later advised reporters to “circle the ‘if’ ” in reading his statement.

In the U.S. view, the only sure way to a Mideast peace settlement is through direct talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The first priority seems to be to encourage talks between Israel and a Jordanian delegation empowered to represent the interests of the Palestinians.