Baker Impatient as 7th Mideast Effort Founders

Secretary of State James A. Baker III ended his seventh journey in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace talks Friday a frustrated and impatient man, with none of the formal agreements he wanted and a growing worry that he may not be able to open the talks on schedule next month.

A senior U.S. official told reporters on Baker’s Air Force plane that the secretary of state may soon quit dickering over diplomatic fine points and urge President Bush to summon the parties to the negotiating table.

“At some point, I think what we have to do is stop fiddling with language (and) nuances of language--and give people an opportunity to either say they want to come talk peace or not,” the senior official said after Baker’s five-hour meeting with Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus.

He said Baker has come to believe that the Administration will have to “force” some Arabs, and perhaps Israel, as well, to accept U.S.-proposed terms for the negotiations.

“If we didn’t, in some way, force decisions, decisions would be strung out,” he said.

The senior official’s comments reflected Baker’s evident frustration after a six-day shuttle in which he met twice each with Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian leaders--but came away with no formal acceptance of the detailed terms that the United States has proposed.

In Damascus, where Assad called Baker back two days after an initial round of talks, Baker’s aides had anticipated a meeting of one or two hours that might produce Syria’s agreement to the U.S. terms. “There’s no hang-up that we know of,” one official said Thursday.

But when Baker emerged from the presidential palace after five hours of talks, there was no Syrian “yes.”

Baker refused to discuss the meeting aboard his plane en route to this refueling stop in Ireland. “We still have work to do,” is all reporters were told.

Earlier in the day, in Amman, Jordan, Baker met with Hanan Ashrawi, one of the negotiators designated by the Palestine Liberation Organization to represent the 1.7 million Palestinian inhabitants of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip--and got little solace from her, either.

“There was some progress but not sufficient progress,” Ashrawi told reporters after the meeting. “We will have to work some more.”

She said the PLO wants some kind of assurance that the Palestinians can negotiate toward a form of “self-determination” at the conference.

But a U.S. official said such an assurance would be “inconsistent with American policy.” The Bush Administration opposes giving the Palestinians the right to choose their own form of government because they might choose an independent state, which the United States opposes.

Israel, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon have all tentatively agreed to attend the peace talks, but the PLO has not decided whether to allow Palestinian negotiators to come.

Palestinian officials said the PLO will attempt to make its decision during next week’s meeting of the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s parliament-in-exile--a prospect that the senior U.S. official voiced some annoyance over.

“Everybody else has said for some time that they want to do this,” he complained. “It’s taken a lot of backwards and forwards to get the Palestinians to the point where maybe they’ll be able to make a decision toward the end of the month.”

Baker plans to wait for that date--and meanwhile, to negotiate further with Arab and Israeli foreign ministers at the annual opening of the U.N. General Assembly in New York next week--before he decides whether to negotiate further or force the parties’ hands.

One leading option, the senior official said, would be for President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to simply issue formal invitations to a peace conference at a date and place of their choice--and put the Arabs and Israelis on the spot.

That warning appeared to be both a tactic, designed to press the parties toward agreement, and a genuine expression of frustration on Baker’s part.

At issue in Baker’s talks this week were U.S.-drafted “letters of assurance,” formal statements to the Arab and Israeli parties of the issues the United States would pursue at a peace conference.

Officials said the letters are detailed--up to 10 pages, single-spaced--but consist largely of restatements of longstanding U.S. policies.

For example, a letter given to the Palestinians last week reportedly restated the U.S. policy that does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over predominantly Arab East Jerusalem.

After the Palestinians asked for changes on some points, U.S. officials rewrote the letter so thoroughly, the senior official said, that it was “basically a new letter.”

Ashrawi said she met with Baker under direct instructions from PLO chief Yasser Arafat,

That statement appeared to annoy Baker aides, who have promised Israel that it will not have to negotiate with the PLO, an organization Israeli governments have refused to deal with.

But Israeli officials indirectly helped Ashrawi attend Friday’s talks with Baker. The fax machine in her house sounded about midnight with its customary beep and whirring. Ashrawi, a Palestinian college educator, had recently bought the device, which was suddenly put to use when Arafat faxed her an order to travel to Jordan to meet with Baker.

She called U.S. Consul General Molly Williamson and asked for a lift across the occupied West Bank to the wooden Allenby Bridge that spans the Jordan River and leads into Jordan. Williamson arranged with Israeli immigration officials to open the passage at 4:30 a.m.--2 1/2 hours before its official opening time--and drove Ashrawi to the border herself.

U.S. officials once hoped that they could bypass Arafat and the PLO in the peace conference, but they appear increasingly resigned to the idea that the PLO will play an important behind-the-scenes role as the tacit sponsor of any Palestinian delegation.

At some point, one official said, the increasingly visible PLO role could touch off a backlash in Israel.

Israel provided Baker with his other major problem this week after he reportedly warned that the Administration plans to link U.S. guarantees for $10 billion in Israeli loans to U.S. demands that Israel stop building Jewish settlements on occupied Arab lands.

Even as he shuttled between one Arab capital and another, Baker was on the telephone--often several times a day--to the White House and his own staff to put out the political fires lit by the statement.

The episode appeared to have stung him. Asked if he agrees that the Bush Administration has brought more tension to U.S. relations with Israel than any in recent memory, the senior official paused and--instead of rebutting the point--said:

“I don’t know--I honestly don’t know. . . . That’s what people say. You can agree with that or not. That’s for you to determine, not me.”

Times staff writer Daniel Williams in Jerusalem contributed to this story.

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