Ortega Seeks Central American Summit

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, extending a nine-month cease-fire with the U.S.-backed Contras, on Tuesday urged a meeting of Central American presidents to revive peace efforts before President-elect George Bush takes office in January.

Ortega accused the Reagan Administration of blocking the meeting and was adamant that Nicaragua would not drop a two-year-old World Court suit against Honduras that has been a major obstacle to such a Central American summit.

“A meeting of the Central American presidents would strengthen the option for negotiations, independent of the U.S. will,” Ortega told reporters here.

He said the Sandinistas have “no expectations” of an immediate improvement in relations with the United States and that bilateral negotiations will depend on the new Bush Administration.

“We are waiting for Bush to define a policy that contributes to resolving the problem that the United States has created in Central America,” he said.

Bush Rejected Talks

The Sandinistas are seeking talks with the Bush Administration to end the seven-year Contra war. Five days after Bush’s election, Ortega sent him a letter offering to negotiate and expressing a desire to normalize relations, but Bush rejected direct talks.

Contra leaders have said they would consider it a betrayal if Bush opened talks with the Sandinistas that do not include the rebels or the internal political opposition.

Ortega, who is in Mexico to attend the inauguration Thursday of President-elect Carlos Salinas de Gortari, spoke to reporters at the Nicaraguan Embassy. Central American foreign ministers, meanwhile, met here late Tuesday and are scheduled to continue talks today to try to arrange a meeting of the five presidents in El Salvador in January.

Four of the Central American leaders are in Mexico for the inauguration and, according to diplomats, will meet informally after the foreign ministers’ session to discuss an agenda for the January talks. Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, author of the Central American peace plan, did not attend.

Pressure Planned

One Costa Rican diplomat said the foreign ministers plan to push Nicaragua to suspend the World Court case as it did in August, 1987, when all five countries signed the regional peace accord.

But Ortega charged that Honduras, under pressure from the United States, is using the case to block any summit, and he categorically refused to drop it.

“There must be a meeting of the Central American presidents without any preconditions, precisely to attend to our problems and not to arrive with our problems solved,” Ortega said.

In the World Court case, filed in 1986, Nicaragua accuses the Honduran government of allowing the Contras to operate from its territory on Nicaragua’s northern border. To drop the case before a summit, Ortega argued, “would be like saying the war has to end in Central America for there to be a dialogue between Nicaragua and the United States.”

Met in January

The Central American presidents last met in Costa Rica in January. They were supposed to hold talks in August, but that and subsequent meetings were suspended because of Honduran objections to the suit, diplomats said.

Victor Hugo Tinoco, deputy foreign minister, said in an interview in Nicaragua that the Sandinistas prefer direct, bilateral talks with Bush but would consider multilateral negotiations with other Central American countries. He said they are willing to resume peace talks with the Contras independent of any talks with the United States.

In Mexico City, Ortega told reporters that he would extend the cease-fire in Nicaragua through December, although he accused the Contras of “systematic” violations. The Sandinistas announced the cease-fire last March and have extended it month by month. Both sides routinely accuse each other of violations and offensive actions.

Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux in Managua contributed to the story.