Murphy Will Confer With Mubarak as U.S. Attempts to Revive Mideast Talks

Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy arrived in Egypt on Friday to confer with President Hosni Mubarak on the latest U.S. efforts to revive stalled Middle East peace negotiations.

Murphy was also reportedly carrying an oral message for Mubarak from Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, with whom he met earlier in the day before flying to Alexandria, a Mediterranean resort city northwest of Cairo.

According to Israeli officials in Jerusalem, the message dealt with efforts to improve Egyptian-Israeli relations, which have been at an impasse over a territorial dispute about Taba, a sliver of land that Israel retained when it withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982.

An aide to Peres quoted the prime minister as telling Murphy that it was most important at this time “to invest diplomatic efforts in warming the cold peace.” If relations between Israel and Egypt improve, Peres reportedly said, it would be a model for the whole peace process.

Egyptian officials said Mubarak would meet with Murphy today, but neither side would say more than that. As has been customary during his previous trips to the region, Murphy’s itinerary and activities have been kept largely secret for security reasons.

However, Israeli officials indicated before his departure from Jerusalem that Murphy had failed to resolve the main obstacles blocking current peace efforts in his talks in Amman on Wednesday with Jordan’s King Hussein.

Those obstacles concern the terms and conditions under which Murphy would meet with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to discuss the next step in the peace process, as well as what that next step should be.

Hussein and Mubarak are both pressing the United States to enter into preliminary discussions with the delegation that includes seven Palestinians nominated by Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.

The Jordanians hope that such discussions will lead to U.S. recognition of the PLO, which could then enter the peace process directly. Arafat, in return for U.S. recognition, would announce his acceptance of Israel’s right to exist by endorsing U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, on which Middle East peace efforts have been based.

The final step, in the view of Jordan and the PLO, would be an international peace conference with Israel to negotiate the creation of a confederated Jordanian-Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This scenario, envisioned by Hussein and Arafat when they signed an accord last February to pursue a joint strategy for peace with Israel, remains largely unacceptable to Israel. Israel refuses to deal with the PLO and is adamantly opposed to any discussions that might lead the United States to do so.

Washington, for its part, has reiterated that it will not deal with the PLO unless it first endorses the U.N. resolutions and accepts Israel’s right to exist. However, U.S. officials have indicated that Murphy might meet with “some Palestinians” if the discussions were sure to lead to direct talks between Israel and the joint delegation.

The prospect that Murphy might have some contact with the Palestinians on this trip has provoked strong criticism from Israel. Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, speaking on Tuesday as Murphy arrived in Amman, called the visit a “grave step” that would have “serious implications for peace” in the region.

Despite indications that Murphy’s Middle East mission was at an impasse, Deputy White House press secretary Larry Speakes said in Santa Barbara, “It is premature to speculate on the prospects for a meeting with the joint Jordanian-Palestinian group until . . . Murphy has completed his consultations in the area. As we have said, we are prepared to take part in a meeting with a joint group if arrangements can be mutually agreed and if the meeting clearly leads to our objective of direct negotiations between the parties.”

Before Murphy left Israel, where he met with Peres twice, sources close to the negotiations said the U.S. envoy was considering returning to Amman for more talks--possibly including discussions with some Palestinians.

However, Israeli officials said that Murphy told Peres that his initial talks in Amman had failed to break the deadlock caused by Hussein’s determination that preliminary discussions lead to an international peace conference--something both Israel and the United States oppose because it would include the Soviet Union.

Problems with the composition of the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, most of whose Palestinian members are unacceptable to Israel, also appear unresolved.

U.S. officials refused to say Friday whether Murphy still plans to return to Amman. But the impression that things are not going well was reinforced by the Egyptian announcement that Mubarak would not see Murphy until today. The two had been expected to meet soon after Murphy’s arrival Friday, and the announcement that the meeting would not take place until the following day seemed to take American officials here by surprise.

Murphy’s visit follows an emergency Arab League summit in Casablanca, Morocco, where Hussein failed to win the clear endorsement he had sought from Arab moderates for his accord with Arafat. Instead of “saluting” the joint peace plan, as Jordan had proposed, the summit merely “took note” of the fact that Hussein and Arafat had explained it.

Summit participants said they were reluctant to endorse the plan both because they were afraid of angering Syria--which opposes it--and because they doubt it will achieve results.

“The Syrians are opposed to it, the Israelis are opposed to it and the Americans can’t seem to make up their minds what they want,” said one senior Arab official. “Under the circumstances, we doubt this plan can go anywhere.”

On the issue of Egyptian-Israeli relations, Peres is believed to be seeking Mubarak’s consent to interim talks on the Taba territorial dispute before taking up the question of arbitration, which Egypt wants.

So far, Peres has been unable to win agreement from within his fragile national unity government to submit the Taba border question to impartial arbitration.

Times staff writer Dan Fisher contributed to this story from Jerusalem.