Israelis Welcome Report Jordan Is Ready for Talks

Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy said Sunday that Israel is prepared to welcome Jordan’s King Hussein to Jerusalem “with a red carpet and a band” after the king’s reported declaration that he is ready to consider direct talks with Israel.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Israel has not yet decided whether to extend a formal invitation to the Jordanian monarch, who was quoted by the French magazine Le Point over the weekend as saying that the time is nearly ripe for “face-to-face” contacts between Arab and Israeli leaders.

But Shamir called Hussein’s statement “surprising” and “significant” and said the government is considering it.

“This is a hopeful sign, and from his side a courageous statement. We welcome it, and I invite him to come to Jerusalem,” Levy told reporters. “He will find the Israeli government prepared to talk with him. . . . There is absolutely no reason to put it off any longer. Israel is prepared to come to Amman as well.”

In Jordan, Foreign Minister Taher Masri was reported to have put a different interpretation on King Hussein’s interview. Reuters news agency quoted Masri as saying: “I will have to see the text (of the king’s statements), but I can tell you that what is meant is not jumping to Jerusalem with the Israelis. The peace process and reaching agreement is much deeper than one statement here and one statement there.”

Although Hussein has reportedly had many private contacts with Israeli officials over the years, no Arab leader has publicly met with the Israeli leadership here since former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem that resulted in the 1978 Camp David accords.

Recent efforts to convene a regional peace conference have been stymied, in part, by Israel’s desire to conduct the real business of the conference by way of independent, face-to-face talks with each of its Arab neighbors, while Arab countries have sought to conduct peace negotiations in the context of an overall Arab-Israeli settlement.

Hussein’s reported comments raised hopes among Israeli officials here that Jordan may now be prepared to participate in a limited conference in which Israel would meet with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation in an effort to resolve the Palestinian issue while discussions with other Arab countries are put off for later.

Key to that scenario would be the acquiescence of Syria, which has until now held out firmly for an internationally sanctioned peace conference with the active participation of the United Nations. Israel has rejected Syria’s terms for U.N. participation and also Syria’s demand that the conference be more than an opening general session followed by individual peace talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

“The king was never a courageous guy. If he’s saying, ‘Let’s dance,’ he must have a feeling of security. Is it because the Syrians said, ‘Let’s play it through him’? Did the Syrians give him a green light?” wondered one Israeli political analyst with close ties to the ruling Likud Party.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official noted that Syria “has not spoken yet.”

“Everything depends on whether they keep their mouth shut or not,” he said. “If they don’t, they have the utmost power to kill it if they want. In this world, you need two or four or five to make peace, and only one to make war.”

A Western diplomat with close ties to the peace process said it is premature to call Hussein’s comments a breakthrough, but he said they constitute the kind of “confidence building measure” that U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III has sought to pave the way for meaningful peace negotiations.

“Jordan has been a bridge country in many ways, and this sounds promising, if true,” he said. “But what we’re looking at is not necessarily a dramatic breakthrough. We have to judge it on the results. . . . It is perhaps one small step that will hopefully lead to bigger things.”

In the interview, Hussein, referring to Israel, said: “The taboos must disappear, because I don’t see how one could leave aside a country living within the Arab sphere. . . . It is too early to speak about it, but I think this should happen soon,” he said. “These face-to-face contacts ought to allow us all to dissipate our fears.”

Besides the negative reaction of Jordan’s Foreign Minister Masri, some other reports from that country indicated that Jordan has not changed its insistence that any talks with Israel be held on the basis of U.N. resolutions calling for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Arab lands.

Nonetheless, Israeli officials were clearly taking the king’s remarks as a step forward. “It was very forthcoming, very positive and very strongly worded, and actually everybody now is wondering whether it’s going to be a formal visit, an official visit, or what,” said a Foreign Ministry official.

“It’s very preliminary, embryonic if you will, but . . . our response is an expression of a longstanding desire to meet with him (Hussein) officially and publicly no matter what.” Israeli officials are also willing to consider meeting Hussein in the United States or in a European capital, he said.

Housing Minister Ariel Sharon said at a Cabinet meeting Sunday that Israel should reject the idea of negotiating with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation and affirm that Jordan is already a Palestinian state, according to Israel Radio. But Shamir said Israel’s policy in favor of a joint delegation has not changed.

Labor Party leader Shimon Peres welcomed Hussein’s declaration. “Every Israeli must pray that this opportunity will not be missed. . . . This is definitely a onetime opportunity, a historic opportunity,” he said.

The Palestine Liberation Organization has not publicly endorsed the idea of a joint delegation with Jordan and did not respond to Hussein’s reported comments. But Ibrahim Dakak, head of the Arab Thought Forum in Jerusalem, said Hussein has had contacts with Israeli leaders in the past.

“The difference is that this time King Hussein is speaking to the public directly and not behind closed doors,” he said. “King Hussein is trying to give a boost to the peace initiative that started immediately after the (Gulf) war.”