U.S. May Have to Choose Talks Site : Mideast: Arabs and Israelis leave Madrid, unable to decide on a further venue. Baker reportedly gives the several parties two weeks to come up with a plan.

Negotiators from Israel and the Arab world packed their bags, folded up their mixed feelings and returned to the Middle East on Monday, all pledging to meet again but at odds over where to hold further talks and how to arrange them.

The likelihood thus increased that Washington will have to decide.

Syrian representatives, smarting from charges that they dragged their feet on their way to the historic talks, promised to keep going with the process.

But they called directly on the conference co-sponsors, the United States and Soviet Union, to set a time and place for the next round. Syria, however, made no mention of maintaining contact with Israel. Syria wanted the talks to stay in Madrid; Israel wanted to move them to the Middle East.

“As far as we are concerned, our delegation will continue to look for ways to resume bilateral talks. We will wait for the co-sponsors to come up with proposals and alternatives for the next venue,” Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh said.

In effect, that means the Bush Administration will have to step in, because Soviet participation has been mainly decorative.

An Israeli official, responding to reports that Secretary of State James A. Baker III will invite the negotiators to Washington or another American site, said, “If Washington says it’s Washington, then that’s where it will be.”

In Israel, where hard-liners ignored American, Arab and European opposition and opened another controversial new settlement in the Golan Heights, members of the Madrid delegation said on their return that Baker had given the parties two weeks to decide upon the next site for talks before Washington would “intervene,” although there was no further explanation.

This turn of events means that the face-to-face talks may give way temporarily to intervention by a third party, the United States.

Israel is suspicious of such a procedure, but it is unlikely to complain as long as, in the end, it continues to meet alone with each of its foes, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians and Lebanon. But Syria clearly wants Washington, as well as the Soviet Union and the United Nations, to keep a firm hand in the process.

“In our view, what is positive is the international interest,” said Shareh, speaking to reporters in the palatial surroundings of the Ritz Hotel. “International focus . . , that in itself is a driving force that should never stop.”

En route from Washington to California to take part in ceremonies opening the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, President Bush said the talks are “progressing well.”

“These meetings have broken new ground, in effect establishing a new baseline for considering Mideast problems. We have a long way to go, and interruptions will probably occur. But hopes are bright,” Bush said.

The President made the remarks in a telephone call to Edward P. Djerejian, the assistant secretary of state for Middle East affairs. His comments were relayed to reporters aboard Air Force One by White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater.

Bush was joined for the flight west by Baker, who had arrived at Andrews Air Force Base from Madrid a few hours before the trip to California began.

“We’re encouraged that the talks took place at all,” Baker said. “They were businesslike and carried off in a constructive atmosphere. No one walked out in the conference or the bilaterals. There is a sense of engagement now that bodes well for the future.”

Djerejian, according to Fitzwater, told Bush and Baker that the talks, which extended into Monday morning, lasted five hours “and had gone pretty well.” But, he told the President and secretary of state--in response to a question--that no date for new meetings had been set.

Asked whether Bush was sounding pessimistic in his comments to Djerejian, Fitzwater said: “I think we want to be prepared for any occurence and not be overly optimistic. Everybody wants to be realistic in terms of the process.”

Syria proposes that the United States act as a kind of court of appeal, a role Washington resists, although Baker has committed the Bush Administration to active participation. But, Baker indicated, all sides must negotiate seriously.

Shareh, whose sharp attack on the underground past of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir created a stir last week, tried to seize the propaganda high ground Monday, saying, “If it were not for the rejection by Israel of Madrid, we would be now be talking peace.”

Israel and Syria ended almost five hours of talks early Monday morning, and the sum of details leaked by each side underlined the deep divisions. As the best-armed and most bitter of enemies, Syria and Israel must find peace for regional stability to prevail, most analysts say.

Syrian representative Muwakaf Alaf opened the meeting by reading the official invitation, which puts the basis for the talks on U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338. In the Arab view, these are uncompromising calls for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. The Syrians brought maps and documents to shore up their case.

Chief Israeli negotiator Yosef Ben-Aharon replied that the U.N. resolutions also call for recognition of Israel and security. “Read the resolutions further,”’ he advised the Syrians.

Ben-Aharon then forwarded suggestions to lay the groundwork for a peace treaty. He requested a commitment from Syria to sign a peace treaty, to open lines of communication between the two governments and to end guerrilla attacks from Syrian soil and parts of Lebanon controlled by Syrian troops.

One Syrian delegate complained that Israel is “putting the cart before the horse” and demanded that Israel pledge to withdraw from the Golan Heights as well as the occupied West Bank and Gaza. “The Israeli delegates said that withdrawal from land has nothing to do with peace,” Shareh said.

Israel complained that Syria wanted to talk about nothing but land. “Their position was strictly six digits: 2-4-2, 3-3-8,” quipped Yossi Olmert, an Israeli spokesman.

In the end, both sides conceded that the main breakthrough was getting together. The meeting was the message. “In a way, it was a sign of breaking some ice,” Olmert concluded.

By all accounts, the Israeli talks with the Palestinian-Jordan delegation went relatively smoothly and without much posturing. Expressions of optimism abounded. “I think there is surely a historic feeling here,” said Elyakim Rubinstein, the head of the Israeli team. “Indeed, there is still along way to go, but there was some history made here.”

The Palestinians basked in the glow of general praise for their performance, which at least appeared to soften their long image of violence and intransigence. “The Palestinians were the winners,” said a senior Israeli official in some bewilderment.

Several delegates returned to the West Bank and Gaza, where they plan to hold public meetings to persuade a divided public about the worth of talks. A few remained in Madrid for continued consultations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was pushed into a backstage role after Israel refused to admit them to the table.

The giddy Palestinians even took potshots at Syria and its hard-line stance. “The Syrians enjoy their reputation as neighborhood bullies and like to live up to it,” said a Palestinian spokesman who was not so bold as to let his name be attached to the quotation.

Mideast Peace Talks Retrospective

Here is a brief summary of the main achievements and remaining obstacles following Israel’s bilateral talks with Arab delegations at the just-concluded Middle East peace conference in Madrid:

ISRAEL AND THE JORDANIAN-PALESTINIAN DELEGATION

* Agreed to meet again at an undetermined time and place. Agreed to maintain direct contacts in the meantime. Agreed to “two-track” approach in which Israel would negotiate separately with Jordan and the Palestinians.

* The Israelis committed themselves to negotiate an interim period of self-rule for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, to be followed by talks on the permanent status of those lands. Israel agreed to allow freedom of movement for Palestinian negotiators in Israeli-controlled territory.

* Differed over the Palestinians’ demand for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and on Israel’s request to hold future talks at least partly on Israeli territory.

ISRAEL AND LEBANON

* Agreed to meet again at an undetermined time and place.

* Did not report any progress on Lebanon’s demand for an end to Israel’s control of a self-proclaimed security zone in southern Lebanon.

ISRAEL AND SYRIA

* Agreed to meet again at an undetermined time and place.

* Differed over Syria’s demand for Israel to relinquish the captured Golan Heights, as well as other occupied territory.

* Differed over Israel’s requests to establish direct contacts, to adopt the mutual goal of a peace treaty, to agree on refraining from violence during the negotiations.

Source: Associated Press

Times staff writers James Gerstenzang in Simi Valley and William Tuohy in Jerusalem contributed to this report.