Peres Warns of New Mideast Arms Race : Urges Break in Impasse Over U.S. Peace Efforts to Avert Threat

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday that the Middle East faces a new arms race and a dangerous escalation in the power of Islamic fundamentalism unless Secretary of State George P. Shultz is able to generate some progress toward an Arab-Israeli peace agreement.

Peres, who conferred with both Shultz and President Reagan, said a settlement is probably impossible unless the Soviet Union endorses the U.S. plan for an international conference to launch face-to-face negotiations between Israel and its Arab adversaries. He said he expects Reagan to try during this month’s Moscow summit meeting to persuade Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to go along with the U.S. plan.

Peres predicted that if the current Middle East stalemate persists, there will be “a renewal of the arms race which will affect terribly the economies in the region.” He said the impasse also would strengthen the hand of radical Islamic fundamentalists.

“If there will be motion and hope, we have more time,” he said. “If the motion and hope stop, the (deterioration in the situation) may be very quick.”

Shultz is scheduled to go to the Middle East immediately after the Moscow summit meeting to continue the effort--thus far fruitless--to win acceptance of his plan.

“Surely the odds against a breakthrough are high,” Shultz said after his meeting with Peres. “Pessimism and cynicism run deep.”

Shultz said he will urge both Arabs and Israelis to “stop what you are doing for a moment and consider whether you want to continue down the road of animosity and violence, or whether your energies would be better directed at the tough road to peace.”

Others Skeptical

Peres, leader of the centrist Labor Alignment in Israel’s coalition government, is one of the few Middle Eastern leaders who has endorsed the Shultz plan. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the rightist Likud Bloc, is highly skeptical of the U.S. initiative. So are Jordan’s King Hussein and Syria’s President Hafez Assad. The Palestine Liberation Organization has said it rejects the proposal.

The Shultz plan envisions a conference that would serve as a forum for direct talks between Israel and the Arab states but would have no right to impose a solution or to veto any measure acceptable to the parties. The Soviet Union, Jordan and Syria want a conference that would have genuine powers to settle the conflict.

Peres said there is no realistic possibility that Israel would attend the sort of conference that Moscow and the Arabs envision and that, similarly, there is no chance that the Arab nations would negotiate with Israel without some kind of conference. That leaves the U.S. plan as the only compromise, he said.

“I personally think that in the present climate it is extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to reach a solution,” Peres said. “So, let’s change the climate (by accepting the U.S. proposal).”

Peres said the Soviets seem to be edging closer to a position that would be acceptable to Israel. He added that in recent meetings in Europe with Soviet officials, “the Soviets went the longest possible way to convince us that they are serious in their support of peace, that they are not enemies of Israel, that they are looking for an occasion to improve the relations.”

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, in an oblique criticism of both Shamir and the Arab leaders, said Peres “has a vision for the future (but) . . . those leaders who are negative, consistently reject new ideas and fail to exploit realistic opportunities . . . make progress impossible.”