U.S., Czechs Will Jointly Monitor Rights

In the first high-level U.S.-Czechoslovak contact since 1978, Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Foreign Minister Jaromir Johanes agreed Wednesday to establish a joint working group to monitor the human rights performance of the Prague regime.

A senior State Department official said Washington envisions a human rights dialogue similar to the one with the Soviet Union that U.S. officials believe has contributed to an improvement in Moscow’s human rights record.

To start off the new exchange, the official said, Baker handed Johanes a list of Czechoslovak dissidents that Washington claims have been jailed for political reasons.

The official said Johanes asserted that Prague--a hard-line Communist regime so far untouched by the political liberalization that has swept the Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary--has “a very strong interest” in increasing its contacts with the United States after more than a decade of icy estrangement.

The official said Baker replied that relations between the two nations can advance “only when there are substantial improvements in human rights” in Czechoslovakia.

“At a time of real change in Eastern Europe, the secretary thought that it makes sense to talk to the Czechs about change,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official quoted Johanes as saying: “We recognize that it is important to move toward a more market-oriented economy and that there must be political reform as well.” The official added with some skepticism, “Who knows what they mean by that?”

The official added that Johanes said Czechoslovakia had no intention of making radical changes in its socialist economic system.

Baker’s Initiative

The meeting came at Baker’s initiative, although one official said the Czechoslovaks have had a standing request for 11 years to hold foreign minister-level talks and that Baker “decided to pick up on it.”

Baker’s meeting with Johanes was one of 11 high-level sessions the secretary of state held Wednesday with foreign ministers and other officials attending the opening week of the new U.N. General Assembly session.

Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens rebuffed Baker’s call for the Israeli government to adopt Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s 10-point peace initiative as a “vehicle” to rejuvenate Israel’s moribund plan for Palestinian elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Talking to reporters as he left a 45-minute meeting with Baker, Arens said there was no point in even discussing the Egyptian plan until the Israeli Cabinet has a chance to debate it next week.

Mubarak’s plan was an attempt to set conditions that would persuade Palestinians to participate in the election, which Israel has proposed to select Palestinian delegates to a peace conference with the Jerusalem government. Israel’s coalition government is divided on the issue, with the rightist Likud Party of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Arens rejecting the Egyptian initiative but the centrist Labor Party of Finance Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin accepting it.

Baker has said that Mubarak’s 10 points constitute an acceptance of the Israeli election proposal, albeit with suggested modifications. A senior U.S. official said Baker used that argument in his meeting with Arens but without success.

Delivering Israel’s formal speech to the General Assembly, Arens insisted that Shamir’s election plan is the only possible formula that could lead to Middle East peace.

As they have done almost every year, virtually all Arab delegates walked out when Arens began to speak. Only an Egyptian remained.