A Middle East Peace Conference Wins Soviet Backing : Diplomacy: After meeting with Secretary of State Baker, Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh publicly agrees to co-sponsor the proposed session.

It took a bit of prodding, but Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A. Bessmertnykh publicly signed up Thursday as co-sponsor of the Middle East peace conference that Secretary of State James A. Baker III is trying to sell to Israel and its Arab adversaries.

Moscow’s agreement to participate was a small victory, but it ranks as the biggest prize so far of Baker’s Middle East shuttle, which has kept him on the road for 17 of the last 20 days.

But even that did not come easily.

In a joint appearance with Baker at the midpoint of their meeting in this Caucasus Mountains spa town, Bessmertnykh repeatedly sidestepped a yes or no answer when asked if the Soviet Union would co-sponsor the proposed conference.

Although he praised Baker’s initiative and asserted Moscow’s interest in making peace, he seemed determined to avoid a firm public commitment to take part, perhaps because he was not yet prepared to announce formally that the Soviet Union will extend diplomatic recognition to Israel, a precondition for conference sponsorship.

“Of course, when it comes to it, we will say so,” Bessmertnykh said.

But after another hour of meetings, during which Baker undoubtedly complained about the impression left by Bessmertnykh’s earlier equivocation, the latter finally got the words right.

“I wish to emphasize that the Soviet Union and the United States intend to assist in the convening and holding of the peace conference,” he told reporters who had been hastily summoned to an unscheduled second press conference. “And we intend to act as sponsor of that conference.”

No one asked if that meant Moscow would re-establish relations with Israel, which were broken during the 1967 Middle East War. But there can be little doubt it ultimately will mean just that.

Bessmertnykh is planning a tour of the Middle East, probably early next month. He declined to say Thursday if he will include a stop in Israel, although Tass, the Soviet news agency, reported that he will. Presumably, Bessmertnykh did not want to waste the announcement of diplomatic relations with Israel at a press conference in Kislovodsk when he could make a much bigger splash with it later.

Although Baker and Bessmertnykh said they spent most of their time on the Middle East, they also touched on other issues, including a festering dispute over interpretation of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty that was signed last year by the two superpowers and 20 other European nations. The Soviet military attempted to circumvent the treaty’s limits on tanks, artillery and other conventional weapons by transferring arms from the army to coastal defense forces, strategic rocket forces and naval infantry--all exempt from the ceilings.

“The issue concerning redesignation of the three divisions has been settled--it has been settled to the mutual satisfaction of both sides,” Bessmertnykh said.

An Administration official said later that the disputes over coastal defense forces and strategic rocket forces were resolved by a series of recent written communications between President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The official said the controversy over naval infantry, the smallest of the three, remains.

“What they have proposed is very good in that it takes care of two categories,” the official said. He said Moscow, in effect, accepted the U.S. position on both issues.

The CFE dispute has blocked progress on negotiations to limit long-range strategic nuclear weapons. If the CFE controversy can be resolved soon, officials on both sides say, the strategic arms pact could be completed quickly, clearing the way for a Bush-Gorbachev summit meeting in Moscow, probably this summer.

From Kislovodsk, Baker returned to Israel for meetings today with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

So far, Baker has been unable to persuade either Israel or Syria to participate in the conference, except on their own terms. Egypt has said it will go, and Jordan has hinted strongly that it will attend. But there can be no conference without Israeli and Syrian participation.

“It certainly doesn’t matter who the sponsors of the conference are,” Baker said when Bessmertnykh was still being coy about Moscow’s role. “It’s not going to be a successful undertaking--in fact it will not even take place--unless the real parties to the conflict have a true desire for peace.”

When Baker talked to Shamir last Friday, he asked if Israel was prepared to make several concessions needed to assure Arab participation. The secretary of state expects to get Shamir’s answer today.

In Israel, officials tried to cool anticipation of major progress. “Whoever thinks there will be a dramatic breakthrough may be disappointed,” Yosef Ben-Aharon, a top aide to Shamir, said a few hours before Baker’s arrival. “We all know this is a difficult, long, deep conflict and a few flights from capital to capital are not going to solve the problems.”

Ben-Aharon appeared to suggest that it was up to the United States to see the process through. “We hope that they will not give up,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bessmertnykh said he plans to add his weight to Baker’s in the effort to bring the parties to the table.

Moscow, the supplier of most of Syria’s sophisticated weapons, retains substantial influence in Damascus. Conceivably, Bessmertnykh could be more persuasive with Syrian President Hafez Assad than Baker has been.

Moreover, Bessmertnykh met recently with leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Baker does not want the PLO to attend the conference, but he does want a representative delegation of Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Palestinian leaders in the occupied territories say they will participate only with PLO approval. The United States has no official contact with the PLO leadership, but Bessmertnykh can discuss the issue directly with Yasser Arafat and his aides.

“It’s not a matter of me helping Baker or Baker helping me,” Bessmertnykh said. “It is both of us helping the process.”

Times staff writer Daniel Williams, in Jerusalem, contributed to this report.