U.S. Official Blames Iran for Fatal Hezbollah Bomb : Mideast: South Lebanon attack killed five Israeli soldiers. But Washington peace talks progressed despite violence, a top American diplomat says.

A senior Bush Administration official on Thursday blamed Iran for the recent Hezbollah bombing that killed five Israeli soldiers and said that the violence is prompted by a desire to sabotage the current Middle East peace talks.

“There is only one country--that is, Iran--that has made it abundantly clear that it is opposed to the Arab-Israeli peace process, and Hezbollah is its instrument,” said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition he would not be named.

However, Assistant Secretary of State Edward Djerejian insisted to reporters that, despite recent violence, a new round of Arab-Israeli peace talks has made progress this week. In particular, Djerejian said, Israel and Jordan are now very close to agreeing on an agenda for future discussions on how to bring about peace between the two countries.

“It is far more important than an agenda,” he said of the Israeli-Jordanian talks. “It represents substantial agreement by the negotiators . . . on key principles and direction on how to resolve differences in the talks.”

Djerejian told reporters that “the negotiations are working. . . . These negotiations have survived extreme violence and rhetoric and the efforts of extremists such as Hezbollah to sabotage (them).”

Last Sunday, a bombing attack by Hezbollah, the Islamic fundamentalist group, killed five Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon and wounded five others. Israeli forces retaliated by staging reprisal raids, touching off a cycle of violence in which 14 other Israelis and Lebanese have died.

The senior Bush Administration official went out of his way Thursday to lay the blame for the recent violence on Iran. In effect, he was absolving Arab governments of responsibility for the bombing attacks and seeking to defuse anger in Israel that might otherwise have undermined the peace process. “You have to look at who Hezbollah’s patron is,” the official said. “Hezbollah has stated its affiliation to Iran. Iran supports Hezbollah. The connection is evident.”

Djerejian said that the tentative agreement between Israeli and Jordanian negotiators still needs to be approved by their governments. But he said the two sides had made “real and serious progress” during their talks this week.

“They have come to agreement on an annotated agenda which specifies many of the essential agreements between the two sides,” the American official said. “They address the territorial issue. They address security issues. They address various ways of cooperation in terms of when peace is concluded.”

If the governments of Jordan’s King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin go along with what their negotiators have worked out, it would be the first sign of success for the Middle East peace talks since they began a year ago.

Marwan Mouasher, the spokesman for the Jordanian delegation to the peace talks, said at a news conference Thursday that agreement on an agenda between Jordan and Israel “is almost in its final stages. . . . We almost came to agreement on many of these items, and both of us . . . sent our deliberations to our superiors to get approval,” Mouasher said.

The peace talks began at the Madrid Middle East peace conference of Oct. 30, 1991. The current round of talks recessed Wednesday and will resume in Washington on Nov. 9.

Some Arab officials are now urging the Bush Administration to take a more active role in the talks, apparently hoping that the United States can persuade Israel to make concessions.

Djerejian maintained Thursday that the United States has been “deeply, actively involved” in the talks. He said that Acting Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger “has maintained an active exchange with all the leaders in the region.”

There has been recent speculation that White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, who got the peace talks started during his tenure as secretary of state, might return for some intensive Middle East shuttle diplomacy after next week’s presidential election.