Jordan’s Hussein OKs Peace Talk Conditions

King Hussein told Secretary of State James A. Baker III on Monday that Jordan is satisfied with U.S.-proposed conditions for a Mideast peace conference and his country will attend all phases of the talks.

“We have received the letter (outlining procedures). . . . We are looking at it, but I don’t see anything that is not positive,” Hussein said in a press conference with Baker at the monarch’s palace.

Jordan became the first country to accept the procedural terms for the conference, which the United States and the Soviet Union hope to convene before the month’s end. Washington and Moscow envision Israel, Syria, Lebanon and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation as full participants, with the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council as an observer.

Before Baker’s arrival here, a senior State Department official said that none of the procedural letters demanded by potential participants were “100% put to bed.”

Despite Hussein’s positive response, no agreement has been reached yet on what Baker has described as the most difficult unresolved problem: representation of the Palestinian residents of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A high-level delegation from the Palestine Liberation Organization met Monday in Amman with Jordanian officials to discuss the makeup of the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.

Although tacit PLO approval is considered essential to give the delegation needed credibility with the Palestinian community, both Hussein and Baker sought to minimize the organization’s role in picking the Palestinian representatives because Israel has made it clear that it will not attend a conference with the PLO or its designated surrogates.

Hussein said the selection of Palestinian representatives is “under control, and I hope we will have a definitive answer very soon.” As to Jordan’s talks with the PLO officials, he said: “The PLO are Palestinians, essentially, and we are in touch with all Palestinians in the diaspora and the occupied territories.”

But he said he accepts, “for the purposes of the process,” the U.S.-backed Israeli demand to keep the PLO on the sidelines.

Addressing himself directly to West Bank and Gaza residents, Baker said: “The bus is not going to come by again. Palestinians have more to gain from the process and more to lose from its absence than anyone else.”

Hussein said Jordan will attend all parts of the proposed conference, including regional talks about cooperative water resources, conservation and economic development projects and arms control.

The monarch’s unequivocal acceptance gave Baker’s diplomacy a boost in advance of talks today in Damascus. Syrian President Hafez Assad has said he has reservations about the regional conference, although he has made no firm decision on Syria’s attendance.

U.S. officials say Syria is committed to be at the more important, earlier phases of the conference, providing that procedural details are completed to its satisfaction.