Murphy Visits Jordan, Hopes to Repair U.S. Ties

A senior Reagan Administration official arrived Tuesday at the start of a three-nation Mideast tour with the aim of assessing peace prospects in the region and repairing some of the diplomatic wreckage left by the scandal surrounding U.S. arms sales to Iran.

Richard W. Murphy, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, acknowledged to reporters on his arrival that prospects appeared remote for progress in the stalled Middle East peace process.

“We think that there has been some movement in the past year,” Murphy said. “The issues that remain are obviously complex ones. There’s no breakthrough in sight, but it’s worth working on.”

‘The Issue of Iran’

Murphy, who will visit Israel and Egypt later in the week, said he expects to discuss “the issue of Iran” when he meets today with Jordan’s King Hussein but that prominence will be given to bilateral relations and the status of peace talks.

Jordanian officials, however, said they expect nothing to come of the Murphy trip, reflecting the moribund state of the peace process and the anger of moderate Arabs with the Reagan Administration over disclosures of weapons deliveries to Iran through Israel.

Hussein was said to be personally enraged by the arms deliveries to non-Arab Iran. The Jordanian monarch has spent much of the last five years marshaling Western support for Iraq in its war with Iran.

Personally Affronted

One official said the king was personally affronted because the Americans had given him a special briefing on the alleged effectiveness of the U.S. arms embargo against Iran only a short time before the scandal erupted in November.

The Jordanians, who are dependent on U.S. financial assistance, have expressed their anger through carefully calculated diplomatic snubs. For example, Murphy was greeted on his arrival by a low-level official of the Foreign Ministry.

Also, Jordanian officials reported with obvious glee that Murphy had asked to see Hussein on Thursday rather than today but was turned down on grounds that the king would be busy.

Process at Standstill

The Middle East peace process has been at a standstill since last February, when Hussein suspended political coordination with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Hussein and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had appeared close to agreement on a joint approach to regional peace talks, but the effort failed after Arafat once again refused to accept U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which implicitly recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Before the talks broke down, progress was noted when Israel, and later the United States, accepted the idea of convening an international forum to seek a settlement. Israel was opposed to PLO participation at such a conference, while the Arab states insisted that there could be no meaningful settlement without some form of PLO representation.

In an effort to restore momentum, the Soviet Union has proposed holding a preparatory meeting to set the stage for a Mideast conference. While Jordan and other countries have endorsed the idea, Murphy said Tuesday that the proposal “is not a very attractive proposition” to the United States.

Since the breakdown of the peace talks, the United States has been instrumental in bringing together Jordan and Israel in a limited agreement dividing administrative responsibility for the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River, which was annexed by Jordan in 1949 and captured by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War.

Plan for West Bank

Jordan has proposed a $1-billion development program for the area and approved the Israeli appointment of Palestinian mayors in four towns in an apparent effort to ensure that the Israelis do not force a major new exodus of Palestinians upon Jordan--which is already 60% Palestinian--and to undermine PLO standing among the Arabs of the West Bank.

Evidence of continuing strains between the PLO and Jordan surfaced Monday night when the PLO Executive Committee concluded a two-day meeting in Baghdad, Iraq, with a communique that was critical of the West Bank plan.

The statement denounced “plots dealing with improving the quality of life (a sarcastic reference to the development program) which are aimed at normalizing the situation with the Israelis, giving a better image to the occupation and accepting the occupation under the flag of peace in the Zionist understanding, which America and Israel are trying to impose on our people with false temptations.”

Arafat and the PLO leadership have also been preoccupied in recent weeks with battles over Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon between Palestinian guerrillas and members of the Shia Muslim militia Amal.

Jordan Ousts PLO

Some commentators have suggested that the fighting in Lebanon is a direct result of the breakdown of the peace process as Arafat strives to find a new base of operations after Jordan’s decision in June to close 25 offices belonging to Fatah, Arafat’s own guerrilla faction, and to expel Khalil Wazir, Arafat’s military deputy. This was followed by Tunisia’s decision to force most PLO fighters to leave that North African country.

The peace process is regarded as so static that even Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin expressed doubts about the Murphy trip before it began.

“If there was a real chance for a political breakthrough, we would see (Secretary of State) George Shultz here,” Rabin was quoted as having told journalists in Jerusalem.

‘Assessing Situation’

Officially, the State Department maintains that the purpose of Murphy’s visit is to “assess the current situation in the region, including where we are in the peace process, and to review bilateral issues in Egypt, Israel and Jordan.”