Carter, in Israel, Urges New Talks on Mideast Peace

Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in Israel on Thursday on the eighth anniversary of the Camp David accords and called for a new phase of negotiations to bring peace to all the Middle East.

Carter, greeted by U.S. and Israeli dignitaries as he crossed the Allenby Bridge from neighboring Jordan, also expressed hope for the release of foreign hostages held in Lebanon.

Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, arrived just after 9 a.m. on the last leg of a private Middle East tour that has included talks with Arab leaders in Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Algeria.

Carter met with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and he said that Egypt--Israel’s partner in the Camp David peace agreement--has for the first time expressed its willingness to have Shamir visit Cairo, a senior Israeli official said.

Carter telephoned Menachem Begin, Israel’s reclusive former prime minister and a partner with then-President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in the 1979 Camp David peace accords that Carter engineered between Israel and Egypt.

A spokesman for Begin, who has differed sharply with Carter over Israel’s responsibilities under the accords, described their brief conversation as “amiable.”