WORLD : Baker: PLO Talks Have Support

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, weighing a decision to end U.S. dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization, told a Senate committee today that an “extraordinary number of friendly countries” have urged him to avoid an abrupt end to the talks.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Baker said he was “hopeful, but not optimistic” that the PLO would come back with the right responses to permit the dialogue with the United States to continue.

Baker said the U.S. ambassador told the PLO representative in Tunis on May 31 that the United States wants three things from the PLO in the wake of the abortive speedboat attack on a beachfront near Tel Aviv last month: a direct condemnation of the attack, a disassociation of the PLO leadership from the act and “to begin to take steps” to discipline Abul Abbas, leader of a splinter Palestinian group, “to show that the PLO doesn’t countenance such acts.”