Clinton Bid for Mideast Peace Told : Diplomacy: A trip by Christopher is expected after inauguration to try to revitalize talks. Personal link with leaders and assurances of U.S. fairness seen as critical.

Secretary of State-designate Warren Christopher is likely to travel to the Middle East soon after President-elect Bill Clinton’s inauguration to tell Arab and Israeli leaders that the new Administration is intent on revitalizing the peace talks, Clinton transition advisers say.

Experts advising the Clinton team on foreign policy have recommended that Christopher make the trip to establish the kind of personal link with Mideast leaders that former Secretary of State James A. Baker III achieved--and to assure Arab leaders that Clinton will take an evenhanded approach to the region’s problems, despite the markedly pro-Israel positions he took during the presidential campaign.

“All these leaders want to take the measure of the new team,” said one expert who has been consulted by Clinton aides. “They are going to want to meet the new group, especially the secretary of state. . . . For the negotiations to go forward, there has to be some ‘face time,’ so people on both sides can get a sense of each other.”

The peace talks have flagged in recent months after a promising start last year, and both Arab and Israeli diplomats have expressed hope that the new Administration can inject some momentum into the negotiations.

And if the standoff over Israel’s expulsion of 415 Palestinians to Lebanon remains unsolved, Clinton and Christopher may have to intercede merely to get the talks to resume.

Christopher’s proposed trip to the Middle East is only one of several diplomatic forays under consideration by the incoming Administration, transition sources said.

Clinton plans to meet with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and may also meet with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney before his inauguration, aides said.

And after Jan. 20, Christopher will probably make an early trip to Europe to meet with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and other allies, and perhaps the foreign minister of Russia as well.

But his proposed trip to the Middle East may be the most sensitive, for he will have to tread a careful path between the marked pro-Israeli tone of Clinton’s campaign statements and the Arabs’ desire for assurance that the new Administration will take their concerns into account as well.

Syria’s President Hafez Assad, nettled by Clinton’s charges that the Bush Administration turned a blind eye to the excesses of his repressive regime, has already sent signals that he may back out of the peace talks entirely if the new President is too hostile.

“We cannot stay in the process if we don’t have confidence that the American sponsor will be fair to us,” a Syrian delegate at the talks said recently.

Thus, if Christopher goes to Damascus, he will presumably want to reaffirm Clinton’s pledge to press Syria on human rights and other issues but still win Assad’s confidence that the United States will be an honest broker.

Likewise, Christopher will be expected to press all the Arab countries to end their economic boycott of Israel, as Clinton promised during the campaign. The Arabs rejected that demand when Bush and Baker made it, and they are unlikely to accede to it.

Clinton’s statements on the Middle East have been noticeably more balanced since his election than during the campaign, when he was actively seeking Jewish votes.

Last week, he joined the Bush Administration in opposing Israel’s expulsion of the Palestinians accused of belonging to militant Islamic groups, while expressing understanding for Israel’s motives.

On Tuesday, after announcing Christopher’s nomination as secretary of state, he responded to a question about his earlier criticism of Syria in relatively mild terms.

“I support the Middle East peace talks,” he said. “I hope very much that Israel and Syria can make an agreement that the United States and the United Nations can support fully. I think that in order to do that, Israel will have to have a high level of security about Syria’s long-term intentions. . . . Actions by Syria vis-a-vis Israel in these talks will give us some guidance about where we’re going on that.”

Clinton and Christopher have made no decisions about the schedule for any post-inaugural travel, transition aides said.

But Middle East experts consulted by the transition staff said Christopher should wait until the next round of peace talks begins, probably in early February, before setting off for the area. Otherwise, Assad or other Arab leaders might be tempted to delay their decision to resume the talks as a means of putting pressure on the new secretary of state, they said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres plans to visit Washington in mid-February, and a trip to the Arab countries might logically begin soon after that, one expert suggested.

Clinton and Christopher face at least three other questions as they seek to revitalize the peace talks.

One is whether to turn the talks over to a special negotiator in order to spare Christopher from spending large chunks of time on the process. But some experts have warned transition officials that the Israelis and Arabs will want to talk with the secretary of state anyway.

Another is how many officials from the Bush Administration negotiating team should be kept on to provide continuity. Most officials doubt that Clinton and Christopher will ask Baker’s chief Middle East strategist, Dennis B. Ross, to stay, in part because Ross worked actively for Bush’s election campaigns in both 1988 and 1992. But the new Administration may ask Assistant Secretary of State Edward P. Djerejian, a foreign service officer who has been handling the most recent negotiating rounds, to stay on.

A third question is whether and how to fend off Arab pleadings that the United States get more deeply involved as a mediator. Bush and Baker insisted that the purpose of the talks was to have Israel and the Arabs negotiate directly with each other, and tried to keep the United States out of the room as much as possible.

Clinton has applauded that facet of the talks, but he will still have to deal with the Arabs’ argument that the negotiations won’t produce results without more U.S. participation.

“They’re going to face a lot of pressure, more from the Arabs than the Israelis, to change the ground rules, to change the way the United States is involved,” said one expert consulted by the transition staff. “There’s going to be testing and probing.”

“It’s going to be bumpy for a while, especially with the Syrians,” a State Department official predicted. “But then we’ll see that we have mutual interests--like bringing the peace talks to a successful conclusion.”