Egypt, Jordan Reconcile After 2-Year Split : Mideast: King Hussein visits Cairo, where officials say peace with Israel needs peace among Arabs.

Two years after the Persian Gulf War split them into feuding camps, Egypt and Jordan officially reconciled Wednesday in what Egyptian officials said was a growing determination that peace with Israel requires peace among Arabs.

Jordan’s King Hussein, in his first trip to Egypt since his support for Iraq in the war made him an outcast in much of the Arab world, met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for several hours and declared that “normal relations” have been restored between their two nations.

“I am happy to be here to visit Egypt and return as we were, so we can discuss the important issues in this delicate period,” the king told reporters after the meeting.

Egypt, the only Arab country to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, is attempting to mediate to bring other Arabs to the peace table. Divisions have grown within the Arab nations over how quickly they should proceed to sign peace agreements with Israel.

Syria, already stung that the Palestine Liberation Organization signed a preliminary peace accord with Israel in mid-September, is increasingly fearful that Jordan will follow suit soon and leave Syria alone to negotiate return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Syria has urged Egypt to intervene to try to maintain Arab solidarity in the negotiations. But officials here said it now appears clear that Jordan feels under increasing pressure, particularly from the United States, to complete a peace agreement with Israel. King Hussein made it clear during his visit that he cannot wait indefinitely, say sources close to the talks.

“It seems now that Jordan will not wait forever. They are going to support the Syrian position, but only to a certain limit,” one source said. “The agreement is almost ready. And all of King Hussein’s statements about how we still have some problems with the Israelis are really only excuses for why they haven’t signed yet.”

Egypt is arguing that it is not necessary for all Arab parties to sign concurrent peace treaties. In the case of the Palestinians, they say, a five-year interim period of autonomy is necessary before any final settlement can be achieved on Palestinian nationhood, and it would be pointless for Syria and Jordan to wait five years to resolve their own issues with the Jewish state.

Syria, whose talks with Israel have been becalmed for months, believes the Arabs can only lose if they do not coordinate their stances against Israel and hold out for a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Jordan has been caught in the middle and appears fearful of being left behind by the peace train, which will probably begin accelerating after Dec. 13, when the first Israeli troops are scheduled to begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

Syria, keenly aware of Jordan’s fears, appears to be turning up the pressure. Diplomatic sources here say a recent unusual attack on a Jordanian military post near the Israeli border may have been Syrian-instigated, a signal to King Hussein that he faces instability if he proceeds to a premature peace with Israel.

King Hussein traveled earlier this week to Damascus, where he met with Syrian President Hafez Assad, reportedly assuring him that Jordan has no plans to leave Syria behind. But his meeting Wednesday with Mubarak seemed to indicate that he needs help explaining his dilemma to the Americans, who are stepping up pressure to sign peace treaties, according to sources familiar with the talks.

The king has also reportedly held secret meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in recent weeks, though reports of these contacts have been neither confirmed nor denied officially.

Egypt was eager to have King Hussein in Cairo for talks on the peace process, though officials said there has not been complete forgiveness for the rifts of the Gulf War. Jordan was publicly critical of Egypt’s decision to side with the United States during the war as well as of other allies that dispatched troops to combat Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait.

Jordan publicly urged an “Arab resolution” to that conflict and acted as a conduit for banned goods to Iraq during the early months of U.N. sanctions against the regime of President Saddam Hussein.

Since the war, Jordan has worked to heal the wounds, tightening up its borders with Iraq, estranging itself from the Baghdad government and attempting to mend ties with the United States, the Arab Gulf states and Egypt. But Egypt has been particularly slow to forget because of the nasty war of propaganda between the two nations that burned months after the Gulf War was history.

Relations between the two countries have improved gradually since the onset of the Madrid peace process. Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Moussa has visited Amman on at least two occasions, and King Hussein’s visit to Cairo on Wednesday follows a visit from his foreign minister.

Egyptian officials said all have come to realize that it would be pointless for Arab nations to make peace with Israel when they are still bickering with each other.

“It goes along the line that Egypt has been working on, which is Arab reconciliation, a reconciliation that means something different than what everyone was talking about before the Gulf crisis,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Nagui Ghatrifi. “Now, we are entering an era, after the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian declaration of principles, which requires a closer coordination and requires a totally different environment and atmosphere from the one which has been prevailing until now.”

Mubarak, in a joint news conference with the Jordanian monarch, said that in relations between the two nations, “there is no problem as long as there are visits and contacts. . . . I think normal relations are necessary.”