Jordanian Ends U.S. Talks, Urges Peace Role for PLO

Jordanian Prime Minister Zaid Rifai said Wednesday that there can be no peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict without an international peace conference attended by all parties to the dispute, including the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Rifai told a press conference that his two days of talks with Secretary of State George P. Shultz, White House National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci and other U.S. officials helped to narrow the differences between the United States and Jordan on the way to settle Arab-Israeli disputes.

But despite his upbeat rhetoric, there is still friction between Washington and Amman.

Rifai said that King Hussein has decided to end Jordan’s 30-year-old policy of equipping its armed forces primarily with American weapons. The Administration last year abandoned plans to sell Improved-Hawk anti-aircraft missiles and high-performance jet warplanes to Jordan because of overwhelming opposition in Congress. Hussein has made it clear that he considers this action humiliating.

Won’t Request U.S. Arms

“We have decided not to make any more requests for arms from the United States,” Rifai said. He added that Jordan expects to be able to obtain spare parts for the U.S. weapons it has.

Rifai said the United States “agrees in principle” with Jordan’s longstanding plan for an international conference, although he conceded that the two countries are far apart on such fundamental details as who should attend and what the agenda should be.

“We are not talking about the principle any more,” he said. “We are talking about details.”

But the details are vital ones. Rifai said that Jordan envisions a full-blown conference attended by Israel, the neighboring Arab states, the PLO and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain and France. And, he asserted, the conference itself must hammer out the terms of a settlement, not just serve as “a subterfuge for direct negotiations” between Jordan and Israel. Hussein has made it clear that he does not want to appear to be making a separate peace with Israel, as the late Anwar Sadat of Egypt did.

Talking at a press conference of his own a few hours later, Shultz said that in Washington’s view, an international conference would be useful only if it led to “bilateral direct negotiations,” which Rifai said Jordan rejects.

“We don’t think that an international conference, in and of itself, is a prospective idea,” Shultz said. “The object . . . is greater stability and, in the end, peaceful relationships between the countries in the Middle East. . . . We have been exploring with Jordan and others whether or not such a useful role can be defined and just how that would work.”

Israelis Split

Israel’s “national unity” coalition government is split over the conference idea, with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir opposed to any sort of international forum and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres supporting a conference that would lead to direct negotiations between Israel and Jordan.

But Shamir and Peres agree that Israel would never attend a conference at which the PLO is an official participant. Israel considers the PLO to be nothing more than a terrorist group. Washington has never agreed to PLO participation.

Rifai’s visit dramatized the problems faced by U.S. diplomats who would like to avoid a total stalemate in the Middle East peace process by keeping all sides talking about procedure while postponing consideration of the more troublesome substantive issues until conditions improve.

Rifai said Jordan believes that the PLO must be represented at the conference, although he said all participants, including Israel and the PLO, would have to accept U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which is intended to guarantee Israel’s right to exist within secure and recognized borders in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from territory occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israel War.