U.S. Renews Effort to End Lebanon War : Working With Syria in Bid to Get Talks Started, Hostages Freed

The U.S. government, working in rare cooperation with Syria, has launched a new effort to end Lebanon’s bloody 13-year-old civil war and, in the process, possibly to win freedom for American and other foreign hostages, Reagan Administration and diplomatic sources said Wednesday.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who leaves today on a trip to Rome and the Middle East, plans to discuss the matter with Syrian President Hafez Assad next week in Damascus. The State Department’s top expert on Syria and Lebanon is already in Damascus, describing the U.S. ideas to Syrian leaders.

“We are involved in trying to reach direct negotiations among the various Lebanese parties on constitutional reform and political reconciliation,” an Administration official said. “This is a process that is intensifying. As the U.S. government, we are simply trying to do what we can to help. We are not leading, we are not mediating, but we are trying to help this process move along.”

Abdullah Bouhabib, Lebanon’s ambassador in Washington, said: “The United States is trying to get the talks to resume. There has been an exchange of memos carried by U.S. envoys. We are expecting a response from the Syrians.” Off-and-on negotiations among Lebanese factions to end the civil war broke off years ago.

‘Everybody Is Tired’

“There is some optimism,” Bouhabib said. “After 13 years of war, everybody is tired.”

He added: “We are addressing the Lebanese-Lebanese issues, not the Lebanese-Syrian, the Lebanese-Israeli or other issues.”

Syria has long dominated Lebanese politics. U.S. officials believe that Assad is anxious to reduce Syrian involvement in Lebanon because of worsening economic problems at home. But these officials say that the Syrians will insist on safeguards against attacks being mounted against them across the Lebanese border.

The sources said that the current talks are aimed at modifying the “national pact” adopted in 1943 that allocates the top positions in the Lebanese government by religious grouping. Under the pact, the president is a Maronite Christian, the premier is a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of Parliament is a Shia Muslim and the justice minister is a Druze.

Seats in Parliament are divided 55 for Christians and 44 for Muslims, about the proportion of the population reflected in a 1936 census, which has never been updated. Muslims are surely in the majority now, however, with Shia Muslims alone perhaps being a majority.

“The question is how to involve everybody, especially the Shia, more in the decision-making of the executive branch,” Bouhabib said. “There have been a lot of suggestions, acceptable to most communities, but there hasn’t been any final decision.”

April Glaspie, the State Department’s director of Lebanon, Jordan and Syrian affairs, carried new U.S. ideas to Damascus on Monday night. Sources said U.S.-Syrian cooperation on Lebanon began last fall, shortly after the U.S. government sent Ambassador William L. Eagleton Jr. back to Damascus. Eagleton had been withdrawn to protest Syrian involvement in an unsuccessful terrorist attempt to plant a bomb on an Israeli airliner.

The U.S. government still classifies Syria as a nation that supports international terrorism. But Washington and Damascus have found that their interests coincide in Lebanon, where years of bloody warfare and chaos have spread instability throughout the strategically located region.

An Administration official said that, for reforms to have any chance of working, they must be adopted before the Lebanese Parliament selects a new president in a special session late this summer. Reforms that require a change in the constitution must be adopted before the Parliament adjourns its regular session at the end of May.

‘Exercise in Quiet Diplomacy’

William B. Quandt, a former National Security Council expert on the Middle East, said the Administration’s effort is “an exercise in quiet diplomacy that has made more headway than might have been expected.”

If the Lebanese civil war ends, some of the hostages kidnaped by the various factions there are expected to be released. However, Quandt, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, cautioned that freedom for the hostages would not be automatic even if a political agreement is reached.

The Administration official conceded that Lebanese moderates have become increasingly impotent as the country’s civil war has become more bloody. He said no one knew if the moderates could put an agreement into force.

Bouhabib said Washington is in touch with Christian factions, while Damascus is dealing with the Muslims.

“It would be incorrect to think that we are on the verge of a breakthrough, but it would not be incorrect to think that we are cautiously optimistic,” the Administration official said. “We are farther along than we have been in a long while--certainly since talks broke off between (Lebanese President Amin) Gemayel and Syria nearly two years ago.”