Shultz Visit Seen as Aid to Mideast Talks
Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s visit to Amman next week could result in preliminary Middle East peace talks between Washington and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, a senior Jordanian official said Saturday.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said U.S. officials and Yasser Arafat, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization, have agreed that the delegation should include members of the Palestine National Council--a “parliament-in-exile”-- who do not belong to the PLO.
Any talks with a Jordanian-Palestinian team would be seen as a preliminary step for full-fledged Mideast talks, the official said.
However, the official Tunisian news agency quoted Farouk Kaddoumi, chief of the PLO’s political department, as rejecting all proposals made by Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy during Murphy’s recent Middle East tour, “as well as the American Administration’s approach as a whole.” Part of Murphy’s proposals dealt with arranging non-PLO Palestinians for a joint negotiating delegation with Jordan.
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