Shamir Brushes Aside U.S. Bid to Revive Mideast Peace Plan

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir today brushed aside a U.S. attempt to renew its Middle East peace initiative after Israel’s general elections.

Shamir’s Likud Party won 40 of the 120 parliamentary seats in Tuesday’s election and is expected to form the next government, with the help of right-wing and religious parties.

Visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci said he told Shamir that Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s proposal for direct Arab-Israeli talks through an international conference is “still on the table.”

But Shamir’s media adviser, Avi Pazner, said, “The prime minister said he was busy forming a government whose relationship with the international community will not change, nor will its attitude change toward the peace process.”

Shamir rejects an international conference on the Middle East and has blocked the American initiative during several peace missions by Shultz.

Pazner said Carlucci did not ask the Israeli leader for a decision on the Shultz initiative.

But, ending a three-day visit, Carlucci told reporters: “Secretary Shultz has laid out a very specific program. . . . It was made and it still exists.”