Soviets Seek More Clout in Mideast : PLO Accord Seen as Part of Effort to Improve Its Standing

Long forced into a subsidiary role behind the United States in the Middle East, the Soviet Union is taking major strides to improve its standing in the region, according to Arab officials and Western diplomats.

The success of a Palestinian reconciliation meeting in Algiers this weekend was carefully brokered with the help of the Soviets and is but the latest Soviet advance in the area, according to Arab officials.

While the overall impact of the reconciliation talks is still hard to gauge, according to Western diplomats, it is clear that the Kremlin will now have far greater influence in the Palestine Liberation Organization than in the recent past.

New signs of the Soviet Union’s increasing concern about the Middle East also emerged over the weekend, after a visit to Moscow by Syrian President Hafez Assad.

Soviets Warm to Israel

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, while assuring Syria of continuing support in the military field, gave the strongest indication yet that the Soviets are prepared to resume diplomatic relations with Israel, which were severed in 1967 after the Six-Day War.

Speaking about diplomatic ties with Israel, Gorbachev said, “The absence of such relations cannot be considered normal.”

Arab officials are predicting that, as early as June, the Soviets will establish consular ties with Israel while at the same time allowing up to 20,000 Soviet Jews to emigrate as part of the bargain.

Another Soviet initiative frequently mentioned by diplomats and Arab officials was the decision by Moscow to forgive debt payments by Egypt on military purchases.

The move was notable because the Soviets are still demanding payments from Syria, which is widely considered to be Moscow’s closest Arab ally. By easing Egypt’s payments problem, the Soviets have undoubtedly risked strained relations with Damascus, illustrating how much importance Moscow now places on improving relations with Cairo.

Flexibility Underscored

The Soviet move was also notable because the United States and Western financial institutions have been unyielding in their demands that Cairo meet its financial obligations, giving the appearance that the Soviet Union is more flexible than Egypt’s supposed allies in the West.

On a broader scale, the Soviets have won considerable admiration in the Arab world by consistently supporting the notion of an international conference to settle the Arab-Israeli dispute.

Jordan, which has been actively promoting the conference idea, has blamed Israel and the United States for blocking such a conference, which would be attended by, among others, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China.

The Soviets have also recently undertaken initiatives to settle the long-running Iran-Iraq War, an issue of considerable concern to moderate, pro-Western Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region.

U.S. Loses Credibility

In contrast, the Reagan Administration is still suffering from a loss of credibility owing to disclosures about American arms shipments to Iran in the past two years.

American policy in the region is also in disarray because of the U.S. failure to deliver on promised arms sales to moderate Arab states such as Jordan and Kuwait. The countries have turned to the Soviet Union and Western Europe as their primary arms suppliers.

“The less cooperative the Americans are, the greater the role that can be played by the Soviet Union,” one Western diplomat said.

The meeting of the Palestine National Council in Algiers last week provided considerable evidence of the Soviet Union’s new influence in the area.

The Soviets reportedly provided the initial encouragement for a rapprochement after the breakdown of talks between Jordan’s King Hussein and the PLO’s Yasser Arafat in February, 1986. The two leaders signed an agreement in 1985 to seek joint negotiations with Israel, but the arrangement collapsed when Arafat refused to endorse U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which guarantee Israel’s right to exist within secure boundaries.

Pressure on Radicals

Having set the reconciliation in motion, the Soviets reportedly exerted extreme pressure on two radical factions--the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine led by Nayef Hawatmeh and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine led by George Habash--to moderate their demands on Arafat.

Hawatmeh and Habash had settled in Damascus after a bitter schism in 1983 left the PLO scattered throughout much of the Arab world.

Specifically, the Democratic Front and the Popular Front dropped their demand that the PLO break off relations with Egypt because Cairo signed the U.S.-brokered Camp David accords with Israel in 1979. The council’s final resolution on the subject criticized Cairo but did not demand that ties be severed.

Soviet pressure in this regard gave the Kremlin enhanced influence with the Egyptians and with Fatah, Arafat’s mainline PLO faction, since the reconciliation talks would have broken down if the Habash-Hawatmeh demands had prevailed.

In the end, the PLO executive committee was expanded to 15 seats from 10 to embrace the factions based in Damascus, including the Palestine Communist Party, which will also give the Soviets new clout in the inner sanctums of the PLO.

Dispatches from Moscow indicated that the Soviets had considerable differences with the Syrians during Assad’s visit to Moscow over the question of an international conference on the Middle East and other matters.

Unity Stressed

A final statement issued by Tass, the Soviet news agency, said that the “sides underlined the need to restore the unity of the ranks of the Palestinian resistance movement on a principled and anti-imperialist platform.”

Some diplomats believe it was Soviet pressure on Syria that allowed the reconciliation meeting to take place in Algeria and then kept the Syrians from openly criticizing the talks.

The diplomats noted that the Syrians were uncharacteristically silent about Arafat’s reelection as chairman of the PLO executive committee.

News reports from Syria about the Assad visit to Moscow accentuated the positive, with the newspaper Al Baath saying, “The Soviet leader’s affirmation of continued support for Syria’s defensive potential means that attempts by Israel and America to monopolize the region are futile.”

In the wake of the Algiers meeting, many Arab officials expect the Soviets to attempt a reconciliation between Assad and the mainstream PLO, who have been at loggerheads since the fighting among PLO factions erupted in 1983.