Palestinians Hold Up Date for Resuming Mideast Peace Talks : Diplomacy: Arab foreign ministers continue discussions on returning to bargaining table with Israel.

Arab foreign ministers reconvened early today in the Syrian capital, still seeking a unified stand on whether to return to the bargaining table with Israel after nearly 20 hours of intensive talks throughout the day and into the night Monday failed to produce an expected decision.

The talks Monday spanned hundreds of miles and included an unexpected meeting between Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Syrian President Hafez Assad in the Syrian resort city of Latakia, 240 miles north of Damascus.

The surprise meeting capped a day that began with high-level talks in Cairo, where Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Moussa confirmed that the group was considering postponing the ninth round of talks until April 27, a week later than the date set by President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The ministers and Arafat then flew together to discuss the issue with Assad in Latakia and then on to Damascus for what the delegates vowed would be their final session in the delicate talks that had formally begun in the Syrian capital three days earlier.

Diplomats and sources close to the talks said they had expected the delegations to agree to the one-week delay and to announce a decision to participate in the talks when they returned to Damascus on Monday.

But Palestinian leaders, who have been demanding the postponement of at least a week in hopes of squeezing additional advance concessions from Israel, lobbied their Arab colleagues throughout the day, effectively stalling a decision.

Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO’s political department who represented Arafat’s group both at the Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo and the smaller session of Israel’s Arab neighbors in Damascus, said earlier in Cairo that PLO leaders will meet Wednesday to make their final decision about whether the Palestinians will return to the talks.

Most of the Arab delegations have been eager to sit down at the bargaining table with Israel, which has sent strong signals that it may be prepared to return major parts of the strategic Golan Heights to Syria and restore Beirut’s control over the Israeli “security zone” in southern Lebanon.

But, the leaders of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, in solidarity with the Palestinians’ crusade to win sovereignty over the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, have shown deep reluctance to send their delegations to Washington without the Palestinians by their side.

Throughout their deliberations, the Arab leaders similarly have kept up verbal attacks on Israel and sought to pressure the United States, which is co-sponsoring the peace negotiations along with Russia, to push Israel for more concessions to the Palestinians in advance of the next session.

Speaking to reporters after an earlier Arab negotiating session in Damascus on Saturday, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh confirmed that all the Arab delegations are eager to restart the peace process, which was stalled after Israel deported 415 suspected Palestinian radicals from the occupied territories late last year. But he indicated that face-saving gestures are needed both from Israel and the United States before the process can proceed.

“We are trying to resume the peace process in an appropriate climate in order to overcome obstacles standing in its way,” Shareh told reporters, adding that Secretary of State Warren Christopher telephoned him during the negotiating session Saturday in an effort to help the group reach consensus.

But the Palestinian deportees, who are still living in a makeshift tent city in a bleak mountain region of southern Lebanon, represent the most immediate obstacle to Arab unity and to peace. Most are members or sympathizers of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which is a rival to Arafat’s Fatah group. The self-styled leader of the deportees, Abdulaziz Rantisi, last week condemned the PLO for even considering a return to the peace table with Israel as long as the deportee issue is unresolved.

The PLO risks losing support among the Palestinian people if it is seen as overly cooperative with Israel and the United States.

“The Palestinian delegation is in a tight spot right now,” said a diplomat in the region. “The peace talks represent a golden chance for them to marginalize Hamas by winning the power, but they have to find a face-saving way to get there.”

Washington had invited all parties to return to the talks today. Secretary of State Christopher said Monday that he was “slightly disappointed” by the delay.

“But I continue to feel quite confident,” he said, “that the discussions will resume here in the relatively near future. I would hope a delay of not more than one week.”

Christopher added that “one thing I would want to emphasize is the importance to all the parties of returning to the table, taking advantage of the full partnership of the United States.”

While Christopher and other U.S. officials have not specified what that means, the implication is that the United States would play a more active role in framing an agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors and the Palestinians.

In recent weeks, Israel has offered several concessions: that one-third of the 396 deportees who remain in Lebanon could return home immediately, plus a statement from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government that deportation is not the official policy of the Israeli government.

But the deportees flatly rejected the offer to let some of them return; they declared that all should return or none. And the benefits of the statement on deportation, long sought by the PLO, has been offset by Rabin’s decision to crack down on escalating attacks against Israelis by closing off the occupied territories. Barred from reaching their jobs in Israel, Palestinians in those lands are suffering severe economic losses.

A member of the PLO’s executive committee, Jamal Sourani, told the Middle East News Agency that the Palestinians now also want assurances from the United States that East Jerusalem’s future is negotiable.