Palestinians Unyielding on Goal of Full Israeli Pullout : Peace talks: Arab side says it will ignore U.S. advice to take what it can get for now.

Brushing aside the Bush Administration’s advice, Palestinian negotiators said Friday that they will not temporarily set aside their ultimate goal of full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip just to obtain an early agreement on limited self-rule in the occupied territories.

Palestinian spokeswoman Hannan Ashrawi said the delegation will continue to demand advance assurances of eventual Israeli withdrawal even though U.S. officials have warned that such a stance will only delay an agreement on Palestinian autonomy.

“We are told (by the Americans) to take whatever they will give you,” Ashrawi said. “We do need to change conditions on the ground, but when you are forced to accept things that would prejudice the final outcome, then we cannot accept it.

“The Palestinians rightfully feel that we have very little to lose,” she said. “If the peace process collapses, things can’t get much worse.”

Under terms for the Middle East peace talks, Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to conduct their negotiations in two stages. The first objective is to establish limited Palestinian self-government for a period of five years. Negotiations on the final status of the territories is to begin no more than three years after the start of the interim period.

But the Palestinians want advance assurances that Israel will relinquish its claims on the territories as part of a final settlement. Israel maintains that such considerations have no place in the negotiations over the interim self-government stage.

A senior U.S. official said earlier this week that the Administration was urging the Palestinians to concentrate on the interim stage and stop trying to obtain commitments that would shape the later negotiations.

“Is this not better than what you have now?” the official said the Palestinians were asked by U.S. representatives. “What do you achieve by not taking a pragmatic approach?”

The official said the U.S. government hopes to build up enough momentum to carry the Middle East talks through an expected post-election lull. An Israeli-Palestinian agreement on creation of a Palestinian self-governing authority would be an enormous step forward.

The seventh round of Middle East peace negotiations began this week and is scheduled to run until Nov. 19. Israel is holding separate talks with representatives of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon in addition to the Palestinians.

There have been no breakthroughs in any of the talks, leading to rumors that former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the architect of the peace process begun a year ago in Madrid, may return for a post-election stint of shuttle diplomacy if President Bush is defeated in the Nov. 3 election.

Baker left the State Department in August to run Bush’s reelection campaign, and the President has said that if he is reelected he would assign Baker to domestic matters in a second term.

If Bush loses, Baker could use the 2 1/2-month period between the election and the inauguration of a new president to try to boost the Middle East talks.

If that strategy works, it would allow Baker to go out as a successful diplomat instead of a failed political planner.