Shamir, Preparing for Shultz Visit, Restates Opposition to Mideast Peace Conference

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Tuesday that while he expects an “exchange of ideas” during Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s forthcoming visit to Israel, he will not yield in his opposition to an international peace conference on the Middle East.

“Mr. Shultz is not the kind of man who puts pressure on people, and I am not the kind of man who gives in to pressure,” Shamir told reporters aboard a sightseeing ship in the Sea of Galilee.

Shamir said that he spoke to Shultz on the telephone two days ago about the visit but that Shultz had made no mention of “trying to convince me to change my views.”

The prime minister’s remarks cast a considerable damper on speculation that Shultz has been persuaded that the time is ripe to attempt to revive efforts to convene a Middle East peace conference.

The State Department said Shultz will be visiting the area around Oct. 18, while on his way to Moscow. He will visit Egypt and Jordan after visiting Israel.

There have been reports in the Israeli press--largely from the entourage of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who is currently in the United States--that there has been at least one positive development to encourage Shultz.

The speculation centers around the Soviet Union, with some reports suggesting that the Soviets have moderated their earlier insistence on the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization in an international conference.

Earlier this year, the United States agreed in principle to proposals advanced by Jordan to take part in an international conference to be attended by the Arabs and the Israelis as well as the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China.

In the U.S. view, the conference would lead to direct talks between the parties concerned, with the other conference participants neither interfering in those talks nor vetoing any agreements that emerge from them.

Israel accepted the idea of an international conference while Peres, the leader of the centrist Labor Alignment, was prime minister under the agreement controlling Israel’s national unity coalition government.

Last May, however, after Peres swapped jobs with Shamir, the head of the rightist Likud Bloc, the international conference proposal was defeated on a 5-5 vote of the decision-making inner Cabinet.

The split between Labor and Likud has left the Israeli government with two clashing views on the peace issue, which looms as the central campaign issue as Israel prepares for national elections in 1988.

“George Shultz is quite updated on the situation in Israel and fully understands, maybe better than some Israeli politicians, the processes of the Israeli system of government,” said Moshe Arens, a leading figure in Likud. “He knows that the majority in the government opposes the international conference . . . and he knows it’s not for him to try to change it.”

Peres is meeting Shultz in New York today, where it is expected that any progress in the negotiations may be discussed.

Israel’s insistence as conditions for Soviet participation in the international conference on freer emigration for Soviet Jews and the re-establishment of diplomatic relations broken off after the 1967 Six-Day War is expected to be at the heart of the talks.

In recent weeks, the Soviets have agreed to allow a number of prominent Jews to emigrate, but the overall flow of emigres has so far failed to satisfy Israeli concerns.

One news account suggested that the Soviets would agree to Palestinian participation in an international conference as part of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, instead of being independently represented. It hinted that the Soviets would not insist on PLO participation but would accept Palestinian figures approved by the PLO.

Soviet agreement on any of these points would represent substantial progress in the negotiations, but Shamir has given no indication that it would make a difference to Likud. Shamir has advocated direct talks between Israel and its neighbors, which the Arabs reject.