U.S. Calls for Mideast Peace Talks April 20 : Diplomacy: But Palestinians reject bid to Arabs and Israel to resume Washington negotiations.

Shrugging off a curt rejection from the Palestinian delegation, Secretary of State Warren Christopher called Wednesday for Israel and its Arab adversaries to restart the Middle East peace talks April 20 in Washington.

Christopher said the Clinton Administration plans to be a more active mediator than was the Bush Administration during earlier stages of the talks. He compared the new Administration’s role to that played by President Jimmy Carter in the 1978 Camp David meeting that led to the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of 1979.

He told a press conference that it is vital for the parties to return to the table promptly because chances for peace “are unlikely to last very long, and the cost of a lost opportunity would be very high.”

But even before Christopher announced the new invitation to negotiate, the Palestinian delegation had turned it down. Delegation spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi said the Palestinians will not return to the bargaining table until nearly 400 Palestinians have been allowed to return home from southern Lebanon, where they were deported by Israel in December.

Molly Williamson, U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem, left the invitation on the table at New Orient House, the Palestinian delegation headquarters, when she could find no one to accept it in person. After a brief caucus, the Palestinians sent back the invitation by courier to the American Consulate.

“We said we cannot receive the invitation because we do not think conditions are right yet for issuing invitations,” Ashrawi said. “If obstacles and hurdles are removed, we will be the first at the negotiating table.”

She urged the U.S. government to make it easier for the Palestinians to attend, presumably by bringing new pressure on Israel to take back the deportees.

However, Christopher, who earlier engineered a deal to allow 101 of the deportees to return at once and the rest by the end of the year, gave no indication that he would ask the Israelis to do anything more.

Instead, he expressed confidence that the Palestinians eventually will decide that it is in their interest to attend.

“I strongly feel that we’ve not heard the last word from the Palestinians,” Christopher said. “My conviction continues to be that the Palestinians will want to return to the negotiations because they see in those negotiations and the United States’ willingness to serve as a full partner an opportunity to make real progress. And I think at the end of the day that that’ll be the controlling reality.”

Israel accepted the invitation, but Syria, Jordan and Lebanon did not respond immediately.

In the past, the absence of one Arab delegation has usually resulted in a sympathetic boycott by the rest. But U.S. officials expect the other Arabs to attend because each hopes to gain from the talks.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Palestinian delegation chairman Haidar Abdel-Shafi said that he hopes the other Arabs will stay away. But he said the Palestinians will not attend, even if the other Arab delegations do.

And he warned that if the talks go ahead without Palestinian participation, “things could drift into terrorism and violence” by Palestinian factions.

Christopher said all of the delegations, including the Palestinians, would be urged to send representatives to Washington late this month or early in April to meet separately with U.S. Middle East experts.

“A passive American role is not enough,” Christopher said. “We must now seize this opportunity to play the role of full partner, just as we did in the achievement of the Israeli-Egyptian peace 14 years ago.”

He offered no details.