Shamir Appears to Be Moving to Join Talks

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir appeared to set the stage Tuesday for joining a Middle East peace conference by comparing Syria’s willingness to attend the talks to the decision of Egypt’s late President Anwar Sadat to sign a peace treaty with Israel.

Syria’s move “is a phenomenon similar to what happened in Egypt with President Sadat when a revolution occurred in his outlook that ultimately led to negotiations with Israel and to peace,” a statement from Shamir’s office quoted him as saying.

According to the official account, Shamir met with a group of U.S. district attorneys and told them that “in a month or two, we will sit together with our neighbors’ representatives and we will talk.”

He added, “I believe we are approaching the beginnings of negotiations.”

Shamir attributed the change to Syrian calculations of the world balance of power, Israel Radio said: The United States, Israel’s ally and benefactor, now dominates the world stage, and the Soviet Union, formerly Syria’s top arms supplier, is in decline.

The remarks were surprisingly unrestrained for the cautious Shamir, who in a speech the night before had analyzed Syria’s motives as a ploy to please the United States. On Tuesday, although still referring to Syria and its president, Hafez Assad, as among Israel’s bitterest enemies, Shamir dropped the open suspicion that Syria’s move might be purely tactical. Officials described the change as an effort to ready Israelis for his acceptance of American-brokered talks.

“You see, my friend, we are serious,” exulted government spokesman Yossi Olmert. “He is preparing the ground for a positive response.”

The comparison of Assad with Sadat will probably unsettle some Israelis. Sadat, although vilified by Shamir and other Israeli leaders before he decided to make peace with Israel in the late 1970s, is viewed as a hero among ordinary Israelis today. Assad, on the other hand, is still viewed with suspicion. Unlike Sadat, who electrified Israel by coming to Jerusalem in 1977, the Syrian leader, known for supporting terrorist groups, has yet to make any public gesture to the Israelis.

Despite growing anticipation of peace moves, Shamir has delayed joining the talks in order to win U.S. guarantees that would give Israel a veto on the question of who would negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. There was no official indication that any assurances had been received, although Foreign Ministry officials expressed confidence that the issue could be resolved.

In the day’s sour note, Yosef Ben-Aharon, a top aide to Shamir, cautioned that the Palestinian issue remained pivotal. He also criticized Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s national security adviser, for comments that were interpreted as setting a one-week deadline for an Israeli response.

“I’m sorry that anyone in the American Administration is proposing a deadline,” he said. “I don’t believe this is the way to proceed on such a critical issue, and I hope we will not be faced with a fait accompli. “

Ben-Aharon met Monday with two State Department officials, Dennis Ross and John Kelly, to work out differences over the Palestinian problem. “We had a very constructive talk. We posed some questions and asked for some clarifications. I think the picture is clearer now,” he said. “We cannot give an answer as yet for the simple reason that the picture itself, as the Americans presented it, is not yet complete.”

There is still no accord on Bush’s proposal to permit a United Nations observer to attend the talks and to allow an opening session, which would include Israel, Arab governments and the co-sponsors, the United States and the Soviet Union, to reconvene from time to time. “We still hold our position that it will not be helpful to have a U.N. presence,” Ben-Aharon said. “Nor have we agreed to a continuing recurrence of the (opening) conference.”

Ben-Aharon took pains to excuse Israel’s tardiness. “We have to proceed carefully, cautiously, without undue delay,” he said. “Everything has to be done in a way that ensures that progress will be tangible and that we are moving together toward the objective of negotiations toward peace.”

On Monday, at the end of an overnight visit, Secretary of State James A. Baker III said that Israeli leaders promised him a reply shortly. A Shamir spokesman predicted that a reply would come in a matter of days.

On Tuesday, Baker kept up the pressure for an Israeli response by suggesting that the Shamir government should wait until after a peace conference is arranged to resolve disputes over Palestinian representation at the peace table.

“It is contemplated that we would receive a response of some kind from the Israeli government that would speak to the other elements of the process and the proposal, just as we have received responses from other governments that speak to other elements,” Baker said at a conference of Southeast Asian nations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“We will continue to work on whatever loose ends might exist pending the actual convening of any conference, if the answers from the Israeli government were affirmative,” the secretary of state said.

As to the Scowcroft comments, in which the national security adviser suggested that the Bush Administration would like an answer from Israel before the summit meeting between Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Moscow next week, Baker said, “There are no deadlines. . . .

“I think what the President indicated was that . . . he would like, if possible, to receive an answer by that time. But if that is not possible, it is not an absolute deadline.”

Israel is trying to bar any role in the proposed conference for the Palestine Liberation Organization or for Palestinians who live in Jerusalem, which Israel claims as its own.

Palestinians insist that the PLO is the only legitimate representative of their national aspirations and that Jerusalem is half theirs.

Privately, a senior Foreign Ministry official predicted that Israel will overcome the hitches through formulas devised to give both sides the appearance of victory. For example, he said, it may be necessary only for the Palestinian delegates to refrain from identifying themselves at the opening conference so as not to embarrass Israel.

Times staff writer Jim Mann in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.