PLO Role in Mideast Peace Is Essential, Jordan’s King Tells Bush

King Hussein of Jordan, ignoring an American request to endorse Israel’s West Bank and Gaza Strip election proposal, told President Bush on Wednesday that Middle East peace “can neither be negotiated nor achieved without PLO participation.”

Hussein praised Bush as “the right leader in the right office at the right time” to bring a settlement to the troubled region. But he did not budge from his position that negotiations can be conducted only through a U.N.-sponsored conference in which the Palestine Liberation Organization would play a prominent role.

“The forum for a negotiated comprehensive settlement is a peace conference under the auspices of the United Nations,” Hussein said. And, apparently implying that the election plan is a distraction, the king added: “Any steps taken should lead to such a conference if our efforts to arrive at a comprehensive settlement are not to be diverted.”

The monarch’s failure to support the election plan in principle, as Bush has done, is a setback for Washington’s strategy of giving Israel the maximum possible latitude to demonstrate the merits of its peace proposal. U.S. officials have made clear that the Administration wants to give the parties in the region a chance to try their ideas for a settlement before advancing a plan of its own.

Bush, standing next to Hussein in the White House Rose Garden after a meeting that ran 10 minutes beyond its scheduled hour, said: “Properly designed and mutually acceptable elections could, as an initial step, contribute to a political process leading to negotiations on the final status of the West Bank and Gaza.”

But Hussein asserted that Israel must negotiate with the PLO, a step that could be taken without special elections.

A senior Administration official said that Hussein “certainly did not reject the idea” of elections. But this official said the monarch expressed concern about the implications of the Israeli plan, which Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir unveiled after a White House meeting with Bush this month.

Israeli leaders have made it clear that they envision elections as a way to select Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who could act independently of the PLO, which Arab governments recognize as the representative of the Palestinian population.

Shamir’s government refuses to negotiate with the PLO, which it considers a terrorist organization. Israeli officials have dismissed as a sham the PLO’s announcement late last year that it renounces terrorism and acknowledges Israel’s right to exist.

The PLO has said that it might go along with Israel’s election proposal if the balloting is supervised by the United Nations or some other international body and if the PLO is permitted to enter its own candidates. Shamir has rejected both conditions.

Hussein described as “a significant contribution to peace” the PLO’s stated acceptance of Israel.

Although Jordan has renounced any claim to the West Bank, which it once controlled, or any right to speak for the Palestinians, the United States still considers the kingdom an important participant in the peace process because of its position on Israel’s border.