Palestinians Voice Optimism About Talks

The Palestinians, speaking out for the first time at the latest round of talks, added their voice Tuesday to the growing swell of optimism about the outcome of the Middle East peace conference.

“We view this as a very decisive and important round,” Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi told a news conference. “I know we’ve said this before, but this time I think that we do have a partner, and we will get moving.”

Her optimism--much like the optimism of the Jordanian, Syrian and Lebanese delegations--reflected conciliatory gestures made recently by the new Labor Party government of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

But Ashrawi warned that there still are knotty issues ahead, such as Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, that “will bring us back to the harsher reality and . . . put a fly in the ointment, if you wish, of the general public euphoria that the Israeli government, the new government, has a new tone and a more positive attitude.”

Ashrawi also said that she would withhold comment on the deluge of news reports about new Israeli proposals, since those proposals have yet to reach the Palestinians.

In one proposal on another front at the conference, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Israel Army Radio that Israel would return some of the disputed Golan Heights territory to Syria in exchange for a peace treaty.

In London, Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger said that he is encouraged by Monday’s opening sessions of the peace talks.

“We are seeing demonstrated by the Israelis a substantially more forthcoming attitude than we are used to and one which hopefully will have a good effect on the atmosphere for the talks,” Eagleburger said.

Since the Middle East peace conference began in Madrid last October, the Israelis have met in separate sessions with the Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese for six rounds of talks, but the first five were marked mainly by recriminations and paralysis.

At her news conference, Ashrawi tempered her mood of optimism somewhat by trying to put what she called the “very positive symbolic gestures” of the Israelis into perspective. While the new Rabin government has stopped the building of 5,000 housing units for Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, she said, he is allowing the construction of 11,000 other units.

“I would like to remind you that 11,000 units are also 11,000 obstacles to peace,” she said.

In a similar vein, she said that “we are very pleased that 800 Palestinian prisoners whose terms have almost concluded will be released . . . but I would like to remind you of the 13,000 prisoners (still held).” She urged the world “to look at everything in context.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster contributed to this story from London.