Israel Warns It Will Oppose Any U.S. Shift on PLO Negotiations

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official warned Tuesday that his country “would oppose” any change in a decade-old U.S. commitment not to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization as long as it refuses to recognize Israel.

Ministry spokesman Avi Pazner was responding to Israeli press reports that Prime Minister Shimon Peres has agreed to accept a softening in American conditions for talks with the PLO.

According to the reports, Peres disclosed the change at a closed meeting Monday of the Israeli Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

A Peres spokesman denied the reports but refused to say exactly what the prime minister did tell the committee. He termed the controversy a “non-event (that) somebody is exploiting . . . politically.”

Israel radio reported that the accounts of Peres’ comments at the committee hearing were being leaked by members of the hard-line Likud Bloc, which shares power in the coalition government with Peres’ Labor Alignment but is deeply suspicious of the prime minister’s peace overtures to Jordan and the Palestinians.

The independent newspaper Haaretz reported Tuesday that U.S. officials favor a modification of the 1975 commitment to facilitate new peace talks. According to its account, Peres told the committee that the United States plans to drop its demand that the PLO first recognize Israel’s right to exist and instead demand only that it agree to direct talks with the Israelis.

The change could be significant, since the PLO contends that it would recognize Israel only as the last step in any peace process.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv commented: “There has been no change in official U.S. policy.” In Washington, the State Department said the United States has not softened its conditions for negotiating with the PLO, but some officials said the issue had been under discussion with Israel.

“The U.S. position on the PLO has not changed,” spokesman Charles Redman said. “U.S. policy since 1975 has been that we will neither recognize nor negotiate with the PLO until it . . . recognizes Israel’s right to exist.”

Another official said the policy also has required that the PLO’s recognition of Israel “should be explicit,” meaning that merely agreeing to participate in direct talks with Israeli officials would not suffice.

But he acknowledged that U.S. officials, in their effort to set up negotiations between Israel and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, have discussed the conditions for PLO participation with Israeli aides.

Israel has said repeatedly that it will not negotiate with the PLO under any conditions. But in addition, an official who spoke on condition of anonymity stressed that it is Israel’s aim to “prevent any negotiations or any deal between the PLO and the U.S.”

The American commitment is included in a so-called “memorandum of understanding” between the two countries dated Sept. 1, 1975.