Peres, Defying Shamir, Launches His Peace Initiative in Egypt

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, defying the wishes of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, arrived in Egypt on Wednesday to confer with President Hosni Mubarak and other Egyptian officials on a proposed Middle East peace conference.

“We are trying very hard to enlarge upon the prospects of peace,” Peres told reporters. “ . . . We have quite a number of issues to discuss, and I am here to see what the possibilities are (for) furthering the peace process.”

But in light of the friction between Peres and Shamir and their deep differences over how to proceed with peace negotiations, the foreign minister’s visit was seen here as having more of an immediate impact on Israeli domestic politics than on the peace process.

Has No Mandate

Shamir, winding up a visit to the United States just as Peres was leaving for Egypt, came close to disowning his foreign minister’s peace initiative. He told Israel radio that “Peres has no mandate to decide anything about an international peace conference.”

Dismissing Shamir’s objections, Peres told Israel radio before leaving for Cairo, “I am not someone’s employee” and “I don’t need permission” to visit Egypt.

Avraham Tamir, a Foreign Ministry official, said here that Shamir “knew several weeks ago that Peres was going to visit Egypt at the end of February.” Tamir dismissed Shamir’s objections to the visit as “nonsense.”

Egyptian officials conceded that because of the internal bickering on the Israeli side, they expect little to come of the three-day visit. Egypt has made no secret of its belief that there will have to be another change of government in Israel, with Peres returning to the prime minister’s office, before the peace process can move forward.

U.S. Proposal Rejected

This was underlined Wednesday by the state-owned weekly magazine Al Mussawar, which said in an article by its editor, Makram Ahmed, that Mubarak had rejected a U.S. proposal to meet with Shamir in Washington this week in part because Shamir “would not be able to offer anything . . . and would not budge a single inch beyond his petrified, dogmatic outlook.”

From the Egyptian point of view, Ahmed wrote, the meetings with Peres were intended to send a signal to Shamir that “nothing prevents an Egyptian-Israeli meeting at any time, anywhere, if there is hope that such a meeting will help move the peace process forward (despite) extremists (in Israel).”

In addition to putting pressure on Shamir, the Peres-Mubarak talks appeared to be aimed at keeping the peace process alive until such time as the power-sharing agreement between Shamir’s rightist Likud Bloc and Peres’ centrist Labor Alignment is dissolved and Peres can assume the premiership again.

Meets Mubarak Today

Peres, who arrived Wednesday morning, met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid and is to see Mubarak today.

Egyptian and Israeli officials said that both meetings will focus on proposals for an internationally sponsored Middle East peace conference that would bring Jordan and some form of Palestinian representation into the peace process along with Egypt and Israel.

Peres agreed to this in principle last year, before he traded posts with Shamir in a scheduled government rotation under the terms of their power-sharing agreement. At a meeting with Mubarak last September, shortly before he stepped down as prime minister, Peres also agreed to continue discussions with Egypt on the form of an international conference and on unresolved issues such as who will represent the Palestinians and what their role should be.

Committed to Discussions

Noting that Peres committed Israel to these subsequent discussions in his capacity as prime minister, Peres’ aides described his visit as a “natural” follow-up to the September meeting.

Israeli sources said Peres had brought with him a list of Palestinian candidates acceptable to Israel for inclusion in future peace talks.

Among other topics expected to be discussed, the sources said, were the role that the Soviet Union and other sponsoring powers would play in an international conference, the relationship between the conference and the direct Arab-Israeli negotiations that would follow, and the participation of the Palestinians in those subsequent, and more important, direct talks.

“We’ve agreed on many points, but there are still two or three that need to be agreed upon,” Peres said. “I am here to see if there are alternatives or if there are ways or means to overcome difficulties.”

Israel has long objected to the Arab demand that comprehensive peace talks be conducted under the aegis of the U.N. Security Council because of the role that would give to the Soviet Union,544696425permanent members. In a tacit agreement with Egypt, Peres accepted the idea on the understanding that the international framework would be largely symbolic and would lead to the direct negotiations that Israel favors.

Shamir, however, has remained opposed to any Soviet or broad U.N. involvement, a position he reiterated during his U.S. trip. He told a group of American Jewish leaders in New York that an international conference “will not be a further step in the peace process (but) a stage for propaganda and extreme speeches.”