Hussein Reported Assuring PLO That It Won’t Lose Talks Role

Jordan’s King Hussein assured PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat during their meeting in Amman last Monday that the United States would agree both to an international Mideast peace conference and to PLO participation in later stages of the peace process, a prominent West Bank Palestinian said here Thursday.

The assurance was conditional on Arafat’s acceptance of United Nations resolutions 242 and 338, recognizing Israel’s right to exist within secure borders, according to Hanna Siniora, editor of the pro-PLO East Jerusalem daily Al Fajr.

Hussein offered the assurances to counter the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman’s fears that Washington is colluding with Israel to completely eliminate the PLO from the peace process, added Siniora, the only West Bank resident nominated for a possible joint Jordanian-Palestinian peace talks delegation.

Conversations in Amman

Siniora said his account of the Hussein-Arafat talks was based on conversations he had in Amman earlier this week with “one of the people in the (PLO) executive committee who attended the meeting.” The East Jerusalem journalist returned from Jordan on Wednesday.

The United States has said publicly that it opposes any Mideast role for the PLO unless that organization first recognizes Israel and disavows terrorism. It also has opposed the type of international Middle East peace conference favored by Hussein because he would include the Soviet Union and the four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

Israel refuses to deal with the PLO under any conditions, but has appeared recently to soften its opposition to some Soviet involvement in the peace process, providing that Moscow first renews diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, broken during the Six-Day War of 1967.

Siniora declined to say whether he met with Arafat in Amman but claimed that he spoke with “most of the Palestinian leaders.” Based on those conversations, he described Hussein’s meeting with Arafat as “frank.”

Arafat Asked to Explain

The king asked Arafat to explain three recent incidents widely seen as having compromised a February agreement between Jordan and the PLO on a joint framework for peace negotiations. These are the execution-style shootings of three Israelis at the Larnaca, Cyprus, marina in late September; the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship and the murder of a partially paralyzed American passenger on board, and the aborted meeting in London between British officials and a joint Jordanian-PLO delegation.

Arafat said the Larnaca attack was the work of “some Palestinian elements” who believed that the Israelis were spying on the movement of PLO reinforcements into embattled refugee camps in Beirut and Sidon, Lebanon, according to Siniora. Israel has denied that the three victims were spies.

The PLO chairman denied any involvement in the Achille Lauro hijacking, Siniora said. He quoted PLO officials as saying that “most likely, the affair was activated to stereotype Arafat as a terrorist and create tension between the PLO and Hussein.”

Siniora said he was told that the four Achille Lauro hijackers had embarked from Syria, which opposes Arafat’s leadership of the PLO. Israel, Italy and the United States charge that Abul Abbas, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, masterminded the cruise ship operation. But Siniora said Abbas was operating without Arafat’s knowledge.