Shultz Calls on Palestinians to Accept Jordan as Their Negotiator

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, reaffirming U.S. determination to avoid all contact with the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Thursday that it is vital to his Middle East peace initiative to persuade West Bank and Gaza Strip Arabs to accept Jordan as their negotiator.

After a 90-minute meeting in London with Jordan’s King Hussein, Shultz said the only workable way of bringing Palestinians into peace talks is to include them in a Jordanian delegation.

“Jordan with Palestinians is a good concept because, after all, Jordan has a border with Israel and there are Palestinians in Jordan--East Bankers, West Bankers, same families, lots of ties,” he said.

“There is a lot to be said for this approach,” Shultz added. “I think it is a good one.”

However, Jordan and all other Arab states officially recognize the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinians. The PLO has said that it wants to have a separate delegation at any future peace conference, and a source familiar with the thinking at the highest levels of the Jordanian government said this week that if the PLO can obtain its own place at the table, Hussein will not stand in its way.

Hussein and PLO leader Yasser Arafat agreed on a joint peace strategy three years ago, but the plan broke down about a year later.

Reminded that most Palestinian residents of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip say they recognize the PLO and not Jordan as their representative, Shultz said: “The Palestinian people can express themselves (n a Jordanian delegation). I think we have to convince them that that is the case.”

Although Shultz has said repeatedly that he is seeking a “comprehensive” peace settlement between Israel and all of its Arab adversaries, the primary focus of his effort is on the West Bank and Gaza Strip territories, which have been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. About 1.4 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule.

“Everybody believes and recognizes and advocates that the Palestinians . . . have to have a say because, to a very considerable degree, it is their rights and their human condition that is involved,” Shultz said.

“We have to construct something that people see is workable and legitimate,” he said. “Having a government involved is important.”

Shultz reiterated U.S. policy against any sort of relationship with the PLO unless that organization accepts U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, recognizes Israel’s right to exist and renounces terrorism. He said it should be “simple enough” for the PLO to meet those conditions.

Israel, for its part, refuses to recognize the PLO, which it considers a terrorist organization.

Palestinian representation probably is the most sensitive issue Shultz will have to face in his current effort to revitalize the dormant Middle East peace process. It goes to the heart of the competing aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians, both of which want the same narrow strip of land.

“There are aspirations that people have that are not compatible with each other and are not realistic,” Shultz said. “What you try to do is get people to focus on dreams that have a foundation in reality. Those are the dreams that can be fulfilled.”

After his talks with Hussein in London, Shultz flew to the Middle East, where today he faces a back-breaking schedule of talks in Jerusalem, Damascus and Cairo. He plans to fly back to Washington on Saturday.

Shultz said his shuttle, which began Feb. 24, has reached “a potentially worthwhile stage.” But he refused to be more specific.

“I think the best thing I can do to maximize what we can do is not to talk very much about it,” he said.

Skeptical Reactions

So far, the Shultz initiative has drawn public expressions of skepticism almost everywhere. But State Department officials implied that some of the leaders offered him more encouragement in private than they have in public.

Shultz conceded that it is almost impossible to devise a new formula that would solve the dispute, which, in one form or another, has gone on for thousands of years.

“Out here in the Middle East, people know everything,” he said. “You can’t think of anything that somebody hasn’t thought of before.”

So, he said, his job is to make people realize that they must lower their sights and accept compromises that they have rejected in the past.