Peres Asks Soviets to Explain Position on Mideast Peace Talks

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres asked the Soviet Union today to detail its position on a proposed Middle East peace conference and the role it expects to play at such a forum.

The foreign minister spoke to reporters at Ben Gurion International Airport upon returning from a four-day visit to the United States, where he sought Reagan Administration support for his plan for a conference.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir is bitterly opposed to such a forum.

The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--the United States, Soviet Union, France, Great Britain and China--would be invited to the conference.

Under Peres’ plan, the conference would not have the authority to impose decisions on the participants.

Peres met in Washington on Monday with Yuri Dubynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, to discuss the plan.

“(Dubynin) repeated . . . that the Soviet Union is not supporting an international conference that will have the power to impose” decisions, Peres said today.

“On the other hand, I told the ambassador . . . it is time for the Soviet Union to be much more specific than it is about its view about this conference.”