U.S., Despite Pressure, Orders PLO Office Shut : Meese Directs That It Close by March 21; League of Arab States Assails Action, Asks U.N. Meeting

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III on Friday ordered the Palestine Liberation Organization to close its U.N. observer mission by March 21 in compliance with a new U.S. law barring the PLO from maintaining an office on U.S. soil.

The League of Arab States immediately denounced the action as a violation of international law and called for a session of the U.N. General Assembly early next week. The assembly last week protested the threatened closing and urged, in a resolution opposed only by Israel, that Washington submit the issue to arbitration by the World Court.

Arbitration was ruled out in an earlier letter delivered to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar by Herbert S. Okun, deputy U.S. ambassador to the world organization. The letter s1634296864federal court order to close the mission if the PLO failed to comply but would take no other action “pending a decision in such litigation.”

State Department Opposition

The State Department originally opposed the legislation, which President Reagan signed last December, on the ground that it interfered with a U.S. treaty obligation to accept U.N. observer missions. Opposition by the State Department to what it construes to be an anti-Arab measure increased as Secretary of State George P. Shultz journeyed through the Arab capitals in an uphill attempt to win support for a new Middle East peace plan.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Richard Cooper asserted at a Justice Department news conference that Congress’ action “superseded” any treaty rights the PLO mission might have had.

“An earlier treaty contrary to a subsequently enacted statute must give way,” Cooper said.

But Cooper conceded that Congress could not have ordered the closing of the Soviet mission, because presidential recognition confers a higher status on Soviet diplomats. The PLO mission is not recognized by the White House, and its existence depends on the 1947 headquarters agreement between the United States and the United Nations, Cooper explained.

‘One of the Dumber Laws’

At the White House on Friday, an exasperated Shultz told reporters, “This was one of the dumber laws passed by Congress.”

But on Capitol Hill, there was no sign of retreat by legislators. A spokesman for Rep. Gus Yatron (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on international organizations, said that Yatron and a solid majority of the subcommittee would oppose reopening the matter.

“There’s no sentiment for it,” he said.

Clovis Maksoud, secretary general of the League of Arab States, declared in a news conference at his office here that Arabs would not go to court to oppose the closing.

‘Not an Arab-U.S. Issue’

“If the United States expects the PLO to litigate the issue, they are acting on a false assumption,” Maksoud said. “This is not an Arab-U.S. issue; it’s a U.S.-U.N. issue.” Maksoud said that he expects the United Nations to defend the PLO mission’s right to remain in New York. U.N. legal officials have appeared in U.S. courts infrequently in the past.

Maksoud convened Arab diplomats here to draft a request that the General Assembly meet again early next week to consider the new situation.

Asked what the Arabs might request from the assembly, he listed a change in the assembly’s meeting place for its next regular September-December session, probably to Geneva, the European headquarters of the organization.

He said that Arab nations might wish to take “measures of persuasion” on their own, such as shutting down U.S. Information Agency offices in their territories.