U.S. Reneging on Talks, Sharon Charges : Mideast: Hard-liner says Washington ‘has already given a negative reply’ on makeup of a Palestinian delegation.

Housing Minister Ariel Sharon said Saturday that the United States has backed off assurances that Israel sees as the basis for its participation in the proposed Middle East peace conference.

His remarks followed comments by U.S. officials that Secretary of State James A. Baker III will return to Jerusalem in mid-September to resume a regional peace mission. The daily newspaper Maariv reported Friday that Baker would present Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir with a letter outlining the U.S. position on the proposed Arab-Israeli peace talks.

Sharon, who has repeatedly voiced his opposition to the U.S.-backed conference, said Israel had agreed to attend the talks on the condition that it receives a memorandum of understanding from the United States outlining past and present agreements with Israel. Included in those agreements was a recent U.S. assurance that Israel would not have to accept Palestinians from Arab East Jerusalem and from the Palestine Liberation Organization in any negotiating delegation.

“I know from foreign sources that the United States has already given a negative reply and doesn’t intend to sign a memorandum of agreement on past agreements and on a list of issues,” Sharon said.

“This is definitely in conflict with the Israeli government position,” he added.

“We agreed to go to this very dangerous international conference, one of the conditions being that if the Palestinian delegation, during the negotiations, announced it represented the PLO, then Israel and the United States would leave the talks,” Sharon said.

“I heard from whom I consider very trustworthy foreign sources that today the U.S. position is different,” Sharon added, saying Shamir had been informed of this change but that the Cabinet still has not received such information.

“First of all, the United States would not leave in such an instance, nor does it see the Palestinian delegation announcing (that) it represents the PLO as enough reason for Israel to abandon talks,” he said the sources told him.

Israel sees the PLO as a terrorist organization and fears that an Arab representative from East Jerusalem would cast doubt on its sovereignty over the entire city. Palestinians see the PLO as their representative and East Jerusalem as the capital of their would-be state.

Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Middle East War.

Foreign Minister David Levy has repeatedly said the United States supports Israel’s position, and Sharon had no further explanation for the conflicting information.