Baker Losing Hope of Fostering Mideast Talks, Diplomats Report

Secretary of State James A. Baker III told a visiting foreign minister he is losing hope of achieving a breakthrough that would lead to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and said he may soon drop his initiative, diplomatic sources said Tuesday.

The sources said Baker sounded very pessimistic on the Middle East in a private meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik at the State Department on Monday.

“It was very surprising and worrying,” said one source present at the meeting.

“Bondevik urged Baker to persevere and said his initiative represented the only hope of progress, but Baker said that with so many other things happening in the world, he might soon decide to devote all his time to areas where there was some hope of getting things done,” the source said.

His account of the conversation was confirmed by others present at the meeting.

Asked about Baker’s feelings, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said: “He’s neither optimistic nor pessimistic. He’s a realist. . . . He will stay engaged as long as there’s reason to be engaged.”

Baker put forward a five-point peace plan last October aimed at paving the way to what would be unprecedented direct talks between Israel and a Palestinian delegation on how to arrange elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

After weeks of laborious discussions, Israel and Egypt, which is acting on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization, accepted the points but each attached certain, contradictory conditions.

Israel insisted on having a veto over members of the Palestinian delegation to the talks to minimize PLO influence. The PLO said it must name the delegates.

Baker, who will meet Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Washington next week, hopes that giving Palestinians some say over their affairs through elections would take the edge off the two-year Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories.