No Specific Gains, Bush Says After Hussein Meeting

Vice President George Bush visited points of Arab-Israeli conflict in Jordan on Friday before joining King Hussein on a royally guided speedboat tour of the Gulf of Aqaba.

Midway through his 10-day, three-nation Middle East tour, Bush was asked if he believes he had made any progress toward a regional peace agreement.

“I hope so. But I can’t point to anything specific,” he said.

The vice president, who visited Israel before coming to Jordan, met for half an hour privately with Hussein on Friday.

“The king was very interested in what the vice president had learned in Israel and the vice president wanted to give him a thorough understanding of (Israeli) Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ viewpoint, particularly on the peace process,” said Bush spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.

The meeting at Hussein’s waterfront resort palace in this steamy Red Sea port capped a day that saw Bush traverse Jordan from north to south. In the morning, he flew to the military post at Umm Qays, near the point where Syria, Jordan and Israel meet at the strategic Golan Heights.

“It just brings home to you the proximity and the danger of the area, given the closeness of the forces,” Bush told reporters after standing atop a bunker overlooking the heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Bush then flew south to Aqaba for lunch at the king’s resort palace. After their meeting, Bush and Hussein took a cruise with their wives.

Fitzwater said the two men discussed Jordanian and U.S. plans to increase assistance to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, captured from Jordan in 1967.