Peres Hails Hussein’s Hint of Readiness to Talk

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres on Wednesday welcomed the implication by King Hussein of Jordan that he is willing to negotiate separately with Israel, and Peres said the king will find a “willing Israel” at the conference table.

Members of the prime minister’s entourage said he was referring to portions of an interview with Hussein published Tuesday in Jane’s Defense Weekly, an authoritative London journal on international military matters.

Peres told U.S. Jewish leaders at two receptions here Wednesday that Hussein had warned other Arab nations that he would go into peace talks with Israel alone if they did not join him.

“I believe King Hussein is serious in his attempt to bring peace on his part,” the prime minister said to the Friends of the Hebrew University at the Hotel Pierre. “He has failed in negotiations with (Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser) Arafat, which did not surprise us. We knew that Arafat preferred the negotiations rather than their conclusions.

“It is the king who said publicly that there is no reason to continue to go on with Arafat,” Peres continued. “Yesterday, the king published a news statement warning the Arab world if they won’t support him, he will go and make peace with Israel. I couldn’t understand exactly the nature of that threat, but if this will be the result, he will be meeting with a willing Israel.”

Later, at a meeting with Jewish youth organization leaders at the Regency Hotel, Peres won applause when he recalled that Israel had intervened in Lebanon but would not do so again despite definite indications that elements of the PLO are returning there.

“We are not going to mix in again in the politics of Lebanon,” he declared. “Once is enough.”

Of Syria, he said, Israel is “following very carefully” the actions of President Hafez Assad’s government with respect to the Mideast peace process. “We believe Syria was and is an extremist country,” he said, adding, however, that his government is weighing its comments carefully to avoid an escalation of verbal hostilities.

Peres, who traveled to New York after two days in Washington, described Israel’s relations with the United States as at an all-time high. He cited the recognition by the Reagan Administration of a free trade zone in Israel, the close defense cooperation between the two nations, Israel’s grant of a site for a Voice of America radio transmitter and an agreement for Israeli participation in the Strategic Defense Initiative, or the “Star Wars” anti-missile defense system.

“We are willing to add a Star of David to ‘Star Wars,’ ” he said amid applause.

As he had in Washington, the prime minister stressed his support for U.S. naval action against Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi in the Gulf of Sidra in defense of free-navigation rights.

“We came out clear and loud in behalf of U.S. naval exercises near the house of this very unique gentleman by the name of Kadafi who spreads violence and terrorism everywhere,” Peres declared.

On Wednesday night, the Israeli leader addressed a 50th-anniversary dinner of the World Jewish Congress. He reiterated and expanded on an appeal to industrial world to aid Arab nations, who he said have lost $100 billion in oil revenues in the past year. The Israeli leader said that the principal gainers from low oil prices, including Europe and Japan, should invest in the infrastructure of Arab states--”not just pipelines, but in the people who depend on oil wells and pipelines for their livelihood.”

He acknowledged the presence at the Jewish organization’s dinner of the Egyptian ambassador to Washington, Abdel-Raouf Reedy, who was greeted by the highly pro-Israel audience with a round of cheering.