U.S. Reassures Israel It Won’t Talk With PLO

Secretary of State George P. Shultz reassured Israel on Friday that the United States will maintain its policy of not negotiating with the Palestine Liberation Organization and said “those who perpetrate violence deal themselves out of the peace process.”

Shultz’s statement to reporters, after an hourlong meeting with Israeli Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai, appeared to rule out talks between top U.S. trouble-shooter Richard W. Murphy and Nabil Shaath, an adviser to PLO chairman Yasser Arafat.

With efforts to promote Arab-Israeli peace talks stalled, Assistant Secretary of State Murphy and other Mideast experts are understood to have recommended that he be sent back to the Middle East to meet with Shaath and other Palestinians proposed by Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan.

U.S. policy since 1975 bars negotiations with the PLO unless it accepts Israel’s right to exist and pertinent resolutions by the U.N. Security Council.

No Change on PLO

Shultz said the United States is doing “everything that we can to bring about direct negotiations between an Arab interlocutor who will be able to speak authoritatively, and Israel.”

But, he added, “our conditions for talking with the PLO remain as they have been for many years.”

Apparently referring to reports of possible Murphy-Shaath talks, Shultz said: “I read in the rumor mill of what we are thinking, and I say someone is insulting us. They must think we’ve lost our marbles.”

Shultz issued an implicit warning to the PLO, which Israel has accused of stepping up violence against its citizens.

‘Can’t Be Allowed’

He said: “We don’t want to see radicals use violence as a technique to derail progress. They can’t be allowed to stop progress by violence. . . . It’s very clear to us that those who perpetrate violence deal themselves out of the peace process.”

Shultz appeared in the State Department lobby with Modai, the Israeli finance minister, and announced about $750 million in emergency U.S. economic aid will be released to the Israeli government. Congress had approved $1.5 billion over two years. This is in addition to $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.2 billion in economic assistance for Israel in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.