U.S. Acts to Jump-Start Mideast Talks : Negotiations: Parties invited to new round in April. Move seems designed to force Palestinians’ participation.

The United States and Russia announced Thursday that they will invite Israel and its Arab neighbors to a new round of peace talks in April, a move that appeared aimed at pressing the reluctant Palestinians to return to the talks.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev made the surprise announcement after Christopher reported to the Russian on the results of his weeklong negotiating trip through the Middle East. The United States and Russia are co-sponsors of the peace talks, which began in 1991.

During his trip, Israel, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon all told Christopher that they want to restart the talks, which have been suspended since December.

“This is a historic moment,” Christopher said. “I’ve been surprised by that. They think this may be a one-time opportunity. They all want to grasp the moment. It’s in that context that this statement was made, rather than trying to force anyone’s hand.”

But Palestinian negotiators, who represent Arabs living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said they are not ready to return to the talks. The Palestinians have demanded a freeze on negotiations unless Israel allows the return of 396 Palestinians deported to Lebanon in December.

Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi expressed hope that “the remaining obstacles, really just the last few issues, can be removed” through further U.S. mediation. “But we are not there yet. We are still consulting, we still have ongoing discussions with the United States,” she said.

Despite Christopher’s denial that he was seeking to force anyone’s hand by announcing a target for the resumption of the talks, he and Kozyrev were, in effect, giving the Palestinians an ultimatum: Come back to the peace talks, or watch them go ahead without you.

“The bus is leaving the depot,” an American official said.

Kozyrev said he is inviting Palestinian leaders to come to Moscow to discuss the deportee problem. That held out the prospect of Russian backing for some of their demands, if they rejoin the talks.

Christopher met with the Palestinians on Wednesday in Jerusalem and offered them proposals for breaking the impasse over the deportees, reportedly including a private American pledge that Israel would review their cases and allow some to return home early. He said he telephoned Palestinian negotiators Wednesday night and Thursday morning to press them toward a compromise.

Another official said that over the past few days, Christopher asked several participants how they would react to an invitation to resume the peace talks but didn’t warn them “specifically.”

Christopher then suggested the idea to Kozyrev at their meeting at Russian government offices here, and the foreign minister agreed.

Christopher said he and Kozyrev have not set a specific date for the talks. “We’re simply putting (April) forward as our best judgment as to when the parties would like to restart the negotiations,” he said.

Then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III employed a similar strategy in 1991, when he was working to bring the Arabs and Israelis to the peace table for the first time. Baker persuaded then-President George Bush and then-Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to announce that they were inviting parties to negotiations, a move that provided the last push to get them to the table.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called the invitation “the right move in the right direction.”

By issuing the invitation before there was a full consensus on resuming the Washington talks, the United States and Russia were “placing the onus on the Palestinians, and very much so,” Peres commented, adding: “I would say to (the Palestinians) that the time has come that they should climb down and come back to the realities of our situation. Come to the talks, and we will work things out.”

The Palestinian negotiating team spent most of Thursday afternoon debating the issues and considering recommendations to make to the PLO leadership.

Later, Faisal Husseini, the head of the negotiating team, and two of its senior members met at Husseini’s home with Molly Williamson, the American consul general in Jerusalem, in an effort to bring the negotiations to a conclusion.

Conferring with PLO leader Yasser Arafat by telephone and then with Williamson in his living room, Husseini tried to pull together a deal that would ensure Palestinian participation in the talks and allow Arafat to recommend acceptance of the invitation when the PLO executive committee and the negotiating team meet Monday.

McManus reported from Geneva and Parks from Jerusalem.