Shamir Balks at Open-Ended Peace Conference

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on Sunday rejected a U.S. proposal for an open-ended Middle East peace conference, and his foreign minister implied that Shamir is getting “cold feet” over plans for the conference.

Shamir, confirming deep differences with the United States, Israel’s closest ally, said he opposes an open-ended meeting “because if there are subsequent sessions of the same meeting or conference, we’ll never get to direct negotiations.”

Seeking to calm far-right furor in his coalition government, Shamir rejected the proposal only two days after Foreign Minister David Levy and U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III agreed on it.

Shamir wants a single meeting, sponsored jointly by the United States and Soviet Union, that immediately breaks up into direct talks involving Israel, Arab countries and Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied territories.

Levy said the conference could reconvene periodically to hear reports but could not impose decisions and that any meeting would require approval by all sides, including Israel.

“There was nothing that I brought before Mr. Baker during our talks that the prime minister did not know about,” Levy told reporters after a 4 1/2-hour Cabinet meeting devoted entirely to Baker’s peace mission.

“Everything was coordinated. Everything was done with the prime minister’s knowledge,” he said.

“We will continue to act to advance the peace process, and whoever cries of despair or gets cold feet cannot distort the picture . . . which is that Israel is achieving the most important parameters from the diplomatic point of view in a way that was not achieved in the past.”

Asked who was getting cold feet, Levy said: “Right now, I do not want to go into addresses. In any case, I had a good talk with the prime minister.”

Levy suggested that Cabinet colleagues were overlooking potential Israeli gains in return for joining an open-ended conference, such as limitations on what the conference could discuss.

But Shamir, who effectively controls Israeli foreign policy, told Israel Radio before the Cabinet meeting that he would not accept Levy’s view.

Shamir said that Arab countries have backed the U.S. proposal to avoid direct talks with Israel and that the current disagreement would not be the last between the United States and Israel on peace efforts.