Shamir Says No to PLO Delegates and to Giving Up Golan Heights

Palestinian leaders who were invited to talks with Secretary of State James A. Baker III last week on the subject of Israeli-Arab peace are unacceptable negotiating partners for Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Monday.

Shamir also rejected comments by a prominent member of his own Likud Party that Israel might consider giving up the Golan Heights, which once belonged to Syria, as a basis for permanent peace with the traditionally antagonistic neighbor.

The dual dismissals seemed to dent hopes expressed by Baker that “new thinking” was taking hold in the Middle East. Baker said he is willing to take a two-track approach to resolving long-intractable regional problems by simultaneously seeking an end to Arab hostility to Israel and the bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Shamir said the 10 Palestinian leaders who met with Baker represented the Palestine Liberation Organization and therefore were not candidates for talks. It is up to Arab governments to find new Palestinian leadership, he added.

“According to my view, the representatives who met with Baker are PLO people--they came in the name of the PLO,” Shamir said as he left a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. “Israel will absolutely not negotiate with the PLO. How can we then negotiate with PLO people?”

Shamir’s stand retreats from a position he took last year when he said he could speak to representatives from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip without checking their resumes. His call for Arab governments to choose a negotiating team reflects his view that Israel’s problems are primarily with surrounding states and not with the 1.7 million Palestinians under Israeli rule.

The Palestinians who met with Baker indicated that they were representing the PLO.