Militants Delay Hostage Release and Blame U.S.

A pledge by pro-Iranian militants in Beirut to free an American hostage stalled Thursday, apparently over the Bush Administration’s refusal to send a top diplomat here to work out unspecified details.

The Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine had said Wednesday that it would free one of three American professors it holds within 48 hours and asked that the United States send John Kelly, assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, to Damascus to work out unspecified details.

But the Bush Administration declined to comply, and Thursday, a second message from the group to Western news agencies in Beirut said Kelly’s failure to arrive “frustrated the release,” which will now be delayed indefinitely “until the picture is cleared.”

In Key Largo, Fla., where he was meeting with French President Francois Mitterrand, President Bush reacted in a low-key way to the latest hitch.

‘We’ve been disappointed before, hopes raised only to have them dashed by excessive speculation,’ Bush said at a joint news conference with Mitterrand.

The President indicated that there would be no change in the U.S. refusal to send Kelly, a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon.

“The United States does not knuckle under to demands,” he said.

After the kidnapers issued their statement Wednesday, the White House decided against sending Kelly, in large part to avoid any appearance of negotiating with Shiite extremist groups holding any of the eight Americans in Lebanon. The U.S. position opposes any concessions to the captors or their sponsors, and calls for unconditional release of all the foreigners held in captivity.

Administration officials said Thursday that they anticipate no reversal on dispatching Kelly to Damascus.

“There’s only a 1% chance there would be a compromise scenario in which Kelly’s presence would not be construed as a concession, and I don’t foresee any such compromise on the horizon,” a State Department spokesman said.

U.S. officials said they also feared that if Kelly had been sent, Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine would at the last minute renew its demand for the release of 400 prisoners held in Israeli jails.

“It was an untenable position,” said an Administration official. “Giving in even on something as small as the presence of a specified U.S. official would have established the wrong precedent. Who knows what demand would have come next.”

Kelly is now scheduled to return to Washington this weekend after chairing a meeting of U.S. ambassadors to the Middle East in Bonn, West Germany.

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Edward Djerejian did rush back Thursday from the conference to prepare for any hostage release. He met with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh in Damascus but declined to comment on their talks.

In his Florida remarks, Bush said that the United States is “not talking to the hostage holders.”

“I would further add that we are grateful to Syria for trying to play a constructive role in what is going on,” he said.

Counterterrorism sources in the United States said the reference to Syria’s role was deliberate. Shortly after word arrived of the delay, the Administration appealed to Syria to intervene. The government of President Hafez Assad had been the first to notify Washington of a possible release, even before Wednesday’s communique from Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine, a State Department spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.

U.S. officials are hoping that Assad will feel he has sufficient stake in the release to try to exert his influence on the captors. With his Soviet allies caught up in their own domestic problems and with Syria’s economy in trouble, the Syrian leader is said to want warmer relations with Washington.

Shareh said after talking with Djerejian that his government has “been exerting a great deal of influence” to secure the hostage release by Sunday. He would not elaborate.

The kidnapers’ statement Thursday said they hoped that Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kenaan, who is the head of military intelligence for Syrian troops in Lebanon, “will head to Beirut to wrap up the issue upon the arrival of Kelly in Damascus.”

Syria has 40,000 troops deployed in Lebanon and Kenaan has played a key role in several hostage releases in Beirut.

Anticipation that a hostage would be released today had triggered preparations in Washington, Damascus and the Lebanese capital.

Syrian troops in West Beirut, where fighting between rival Muslim militias has flared for two days, were placed on high alert, according to press reports.

“The Syrians are currently trying to stop the clashes,” the Associated Press quoted a police spokesman as saying. “You can’t expect a hostage to be freed under such risky conditions.”

A team of U.S. intelligence and medical specialists was sent from Washington to a U.S. air base in Wiesbaden, West Germany, where any freed American hostage would be taken for a medical examination and debriefing.

The kidnapers, who abducted the three Americans in January, 1987, on the campus of Beirut University College, had declared in their first statement that they would free one of the men as a “goodwill initiative in order to close the hostage file.” They said their decision came in response to appeals from Iranian and Syrian officials.

Attached to the statement was a photograph of Jesse Turner, 42, who had taught mathematics at Beirut University College since 1983 and at Cal State San Bernardino before that. The photograph triggered speculation and reports from Beirut news agencies, quoting unidentified sources, that he was the hostage to be released.

But the kidnapers sent a photograph they identified as that of Robert Polhill, 55, with their statement on Thursday. Polhill is an assistant professor of business studies.

Ruth Polhill, his mother, said in an interview from her Fishkill, N.Y., home that the picture she saw flashed on her television screen did not look like her son.

Although she has not seen him without a beard since before he left for Beirut, she said, “it was such a thin face . . . It didn’t look like him.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” she said of the developments of the past two days. “It is cruel. They mean things to be cruel. It’s part of their political advantage.”

Turner’s 68-year-old mother, Estelle Ronneburg of Boise, Ida., said she was crushed by the news of the delay.

“I guess I should have expected it,” she said, standing among reporters in front of her home. “I had a nagging thought that (the terrorists) had done this before, they’ll do it again.”

The third professor held by the group is Alann Steen, 50, who taught journalism at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif. before going to Beirut.

In Washington, the State Department spokesman said that despite the delay, the United States had not given up hope for a hostage release.

“We’re still hopeful. We’re realistic about it, but we’re still taking this seriously,” he said.

Williams reported from Damascus and Wright from Washington. Times staff writers James Gerstenzang, in Key Largo; Karen Tumulty, in New York; and Ron Harris, in Boise, contributed to this report.