Palestinian Issue Proves Snag in Mideast Talks

Just hours after Secretary of State James A. Baker III left here saying that he expected to get a yes from Israel on peace talks “shortly,” Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Monday that it is up to the United States to assure Israel that Palestinian delegates to the talks meet with Israel’s approval.

Baker met with Shamir and two of his top ministers in the morning to discuss the conditions for Israel’s participation as well as the stand of Arab governments that have said they would take part.

But, as was true during one previous effort by Baker to broker Middle East peace talks, the Palestinian issue created a tangle.

“This part (the Palestinian role) is not ready yet,” Shamir told reporters after an evening speech to foreign fund-raisers. “We want a solution for this problem. It has to be solved by the United States.”

His spokesman, Avi Pazner, added that Israel expects Washington to ensure that no Palestinian delegate belongs to the Palestine Liberation Organization or is a resident of Jerusalem.

Two procedural questions are still unresolved, Pazner advised: whether the United Nations will play a role in the conference, which would be jointly sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union, and whether the opening session, including all participants, would reconvene or whether, instead, the rest of the conference would consist of bilateral talks between Israel and the various Arab delegations.

“But the Palestinian issue is the most complicated,” Pazner said.

Nonetheless, Pazner predicted that Shamir will answer Baker in a matter of “days and not weeks.”

Meanwhile, in a clear warning to Israel, White House National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft indicated that the issues of U.S. aid to Israel and the Israelis’ acceptance of Washington’s Middle East peace efforts are tied to each other.

The Shamir government’s position was not the only hitch to emerge during the day in Israel. Palestinians demanded that Washington guarantee them “self-determination” as an outcome of the proposed talks, a pledge they have not yet received.

A senior Foreign Ministry official told The Times that Shamir had formally asked Baker for assurances on the makeup of a Palestinian delegation and expected either a public statement or wording on the invitation to explicitly bar unwanted members.

In a press conference that ended an overnight visit to Jerusalem, Baker said he expects a quick Israeli response to the call by President Bush for the regional talks. “The prime minister indicated that he would respond shortly to our proposals. I am satisfied that he and his colleagues will consider their position and our proposals carefully, and I look forward with great hope to their response,” he said.

Baker raised the rhetorical tone of his encounter by calling the proposed talks a “historical opportunity” for Israel to negotiate one-on-one with Arab adversaries.

“For 43 years, Israel has sought direct negotiations with its neighbors, and it has been right to do so,” Baker intoned. “Direct negotiations are the only way to solve problems and the only way to secure peace, and now there is a real opportunity to get to these face-to-face negotiations.”

Baker left three top advisers in Israel to keep in touch with the Israelis.

He would not comment on the issue of the Palestinian delegation, saying it is too sensitive.

The unresolved question of who would represent the Palestinians spelled the end of a peace plan first offered by Shamir in May, 1989. The plan called for elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to choose Palestinian negotiators.

Baker tried to put the plan into effect with formulas to permit Palestinians who live in Jerusalem or in exile to take part. Shamir rejected the ideas, effectively killing his own plan.

The ban on Jerusalem residents is meant to preclude any talks that would give the Arabs a claim to half the city. Israel won the Arab eastern side of Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War and annexed the neighborhoods the same year.

The exclusion of exiles is designed to keep those affiliated with the PLO from taking part.

In words that could have been said a year ago, Shamir spokesman Yossi Ahimeir said Monday, “The central problem is the composition of the Palestinian delegation.”

Baker met with three Palestinian leaders Sunday. One of them lives in Jerusalem--and told reporters Monday that the Palestinians reject any attempt to ban Jerusalem residents.

“No talks can start without Palestinians from Jerusalem,” said Faisal Husseini, who is a member of an old Jerusalem family.

The Palestinians demanded that Baker make clear whether the goal of the talks is an end to occupation and “self-determination,” a reference to the Palestinian demand for statehood.

They expressed confidence that if Palestinians do not attend talks, no Arab government will show up, and the effort would collapse. “I cannot imagine solving any problem in the region without solving the Palestinian problem,” Husseini declared.

Despite talk of a having a peace conference by October, some U.S. officials believe that it might not get off the ground until January, 1993, because of the anticipated backlash by the religious and secular right wing in Israel.

The Administration fears that a definitive agreement by Shamir to attend a summit could lead small parties on the Israeli right to walk out on the coalition, resulting in a collapse of the government. If the government falls, Shamir would have to form a new coalition or Israel would have to hold new national elections--a process that could take months.

“Israel may be forced into elections, or Shamir may opt for them by saying he can’t go in to talks without a national mandate,” said one senior U.S. official.

The official said plans to include the Middle East in the final communique from the seven-nation economic summit last week--promoting negotiations and criticizing Israeli settlements--were closely held in the State Department before the summit and apparently came as a surprise to Israel.

“Europe and the United States have been at odds for 15 years,” said the official. “Now, they’re speaking as one, and the linkage stunned Israel.”

In May, Bush sent letters to Mideast leaders appealing for support to get talks under way. Earlier, Bush proposed a two-track approach: Israel and Arab states would resolve their differences, and Israel and the Palestinians theirs. The Palestinians would join the talks as part of a team from Jordan.

Bush suggested compromises to overcome disputes on the role of the United Nations as well as the conference sponsors. The Arabs wanted a strong U.N. role and active intervention by Washington and Moscow. Israel did not. Bush’s compromise gave the United Nations an observer’s role. The opening, multi-state meeting could reconvene only at the request of all the Mideast governments, including Israel.

So far, three hostile states that touch Israel’s border--Syria, Lebanon and Jordan--have agreed to the formula.

Shamir’s government is both intrigued by and suspicious of the Syrian response and requested detailed accounts from Baker. Although a minister close to Shamir called the change in attitude on the part of Syria and other Arab countries “revolutionary,” Shamir himself seemed unconvinced.

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this article.