Polish Premier Offering Peace Talks With Walesa : Politics: The Solidarity leader says his former ally is moving too slowly on reforms.

Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki offered Sunday to meet this week with Lech Walesa to ease the bitter political war that has torn the Solidarity movement.

An aide to Walesa said the Solidarity chairman is aware of the offer and that arrangements for the meeting will probably be announced soon.

Mazowiecki’s peace gesture came at a meeting of local Solidarity citizens committees called by his backers in the conflict. Walesa has accused his former ally of moving too slowly to implement political and economic reforms.

Members of citizens committees from around the country met Saturday with Walesa and then Sunday with Mazowiecki to discuss what direction the Solidarity union movement should take.

Mazowiecki’s backers failed to win enough support to create a nationwide federation of citizens committees behind the government. Instead, the issue was postponed until a conference July 21.

Sunday’s meeting passed a resolution urging the Solidarity leader and Mazowiecki to cooperate.

Taking the floor earlier, Mazowiecki told the local activists meeting in the Parliament building that he is always willing to talk with Walesa even though he has been attacked by him.

He said he will call Walesa on condition that the conversation would be conducted as a “full partnership” and not as Mazowiecki “paying a serf’s homage.”

“I think that certain issues should be toned down,” Mazowiecki said. “I am proposing to Mr. Walesa to talk this coming week.”

Mazowiecki said they should talk “not to remove all differences between us, because that would not be true, but to talk so that disputes and battles proceed in a way that does not destroy the common good of Poland and Solidarity’s legacy.”

Asked later, he declined to elaborate on specific topics for discussion.

Walesa aide Krzysztof Pusz, reached at home in Gdansk, said Walesa is aware of Mazowiecki’s proposal.

“I think the details should be worked out this week,” Pusz said.

The Walesa and Mazowiecki factions were competing for the allegiance of the grass roots during the weekend meetings, and the fight seemed to end in a draw.

Delegates were not enthusiastic about the call from the Mazowiecki faction for creating a national federation that would act as a base of support for the government.

But in a straw poll Sunday, they also rejected Walesa’s proposal that the citizens committees be opened to members of other political groups.

The nine-month government has introduced radical economic reforms. But it has taken a gradual approach to dismantling the old Communist power structure and dismissing Communist holdovers, arguing the alternative would be witch hunts and chaos.

The prime minister told the meeting Sunday that there is need for “political support for this cause taking place in Poland.”