Israel and PLO Open Talks to Implement Accord : Mideast: Both sides agree not to let negotiations on achieving Palestinian self-rule bog down in quarrels.

The principal architects of the historic accord on Palestinian self-government opened negotiations Wednesday--likely to be just as challenging--to put the pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization into practice.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, a member of the PLO executive committee, met almost as old friends after the months of clandestine negotiations that led to the accord.

They pledged not to bog down the new talks in the point-scoring, minutiae and pettifogging that have frequently stalled or prevented Arab-Israeli agreements.

“Both of us agreed that the purpose is not to argue and create polemics, but to build bridges and create the right climate and the right approach,” a serious but jovial Peres told a news conference.

Abbas, known as Abu Maazen, added, “We are very keen to reach a real peace. . . . Every day there is progress because the peace process has its own dynamics, and every day there must be a development toward something better. This is what we hope and expect.”

Under the accord signed a month ago in Washington, Israel and the PLO have just two months to work out a detailed plan for Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho by mid-April, and for the structure and powers of the Palestinian authority that takes over there.

Teams of Israeli and Palestinian officials immediately began talks Wednesday afternoon in the Egyptian resort of Taba to begin the process that will bring the 26-year Israeli occupation to an end and put the Palestinians on the path toward what they hope will be full independence in five years.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in an interview with Israel Radio from China where he is on a visit, stressed the importance of the detailed talks here.

“Without meaningful progress in the committee to advance Gaza-Jericho (autonomy), all the rest will be simply marginal and secondary,” Rabin said. “It’s a committee that will have to work, and I am full of hope that the time for it--which is two months--will be enough to realize the principles (in the agreement) and to translate in the field what we want.”

As evidence of its goodwill, Israel agreed to discuss immediately the release of the more than 10,000 Palestinians it has jailed for political crimes or detained without charge, and the return of thousands of others it sent into exile.

Abbas said the issue of Palestinian access to East Jerusalem, closed to most residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for six months, also would be reviewed immediately. He noted that Faisal Husseini, who led the Palestinian team to the Arab-Israeli peace talks, has met with Moshe Shahal, the Israeli police minister, on lifting the restrictions.

The Taba negotiations will be immensely complex, Palestinian and Israeli officials acknowledged, because they must not only work out a plan for the Israeli withdrawal and subsequent security measures for Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Israel itself but also a program for developing a Palestinian government where none has existed.

So broad was the agreement signed a month ago by Peres and Abbas at the White House that it did not even define how big “Jericho” will be as an autonomous region.

Ephraim Sneh, a member of the Israeli Parliament who advises Rabin on Palestinian issues, commented earlier this week in Jerusalem, “The Palestinian dimensions of Jericho run somewhere from Paris to Islamabad. Our perception is that it will just be the town of Jericho itself.”

Mahmoud Okasha, an adviser to the Palestinian negotiators, said the Arabs, indeed, wanted 158 square miles but the Israelis were considering only about 10 square miles.

“We will probably have a lot of gaps about that size or even larger to close in the next two months, and I hope we will succeed,” Okasha said.

Heading the delegations to the Taba talks are PLO strategist Nabil Shaath, and Deputy Army Chief of Staff Amnon Shahak for Israel.

“We come from two perspectives, with two sets of goals, into a politically volatile region,” a senior PLO official commented. “We are under no illusions that this will be easy, and two years of talks with the Israelis have taught us that they are hard bargainers who keep their interests firmly in place.”

Senior Israeli and PLO delegations, led by Peres and Abbas, will meet every two or three weeks in Cairo to discuss key issues and resolve problems referred by lower level groups. The Taba committees will meet continuously.

Negotiations also will resume in Washington on broader aspects of Palestinian autonomy, including elections by mid-July, and a committee on economic cooperation will begin meeting shortly.