Israel-PLO Talks Resume; Agreement Is Expected to Take Several Weeks : Mideast: Renewal of discussions ends prolonged stalemate. Palestinians see quicker resolution than Israelis predict.

At this breezy coastal resort that was once a flash point of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators resumed their troubled talks for Palestinian autonomy Monday but predicted that an agreement is at least several weeks away.

Meeting only a few hundred yards from the Israeli border in this Red Sea outpost, the last place handed back by Israel in its historic peace treaty with Egypt, the two sides ended several weeks of stalemate to begin working through the issues that so far have blocked any agreement on Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

Israeli officials cautioned that many weeks of grueling discussions lie ahead, but Palestinians said the remaining disputes could be worked through in the next two to three weeks. PLO representatives warned that an agreement must be signed before the April 13 deadline envisioned in the original peace accord for withdrawal of Israeli troops from the two autonomous areas.

“I know exactly what the differences are, and I know that they are solvable, and I know that three weeks is enough,” chief PLO negotiator Nabil Shaath said, minimizing Israeli fears that the April 13 date for withdrawal may not be realistic.

“If they say that, they’re violating the agreement, right and left. . . . And if we are going to play havoc with this second date, then we are playing havoc with the whole agreement,” Shaath said. “I think it is a sad tragedy for any party to claim publicly that he wants to violate the agreement. We should both sit down and do it, rather than talking about delaying it.”

But Israel, stung by what it perceived as Palestinian backtracking on understandings negotiated in recent weeks, made it clear that it will insist on exhaustively locking in every detail before any agreement is signed.

“It seems to me that we have a very great deal of very complicated work in front of us, and I would say that the estimate of two to three weeks seems a little optimistic,” Israeli delegation spokesman Ami Gluska said. “There’s a great deal of work. Gaps have to be bridged, formulations have to be made. . . . But we shall make every effort to finish as soon as possible.”

Maj. Gen. Amnon Shahak, the chief Israeli negotiator, would not commit himself to a three-week deadline but said: “This is a place for optimistic people. If I wasn’t optimistic, I wouldn’t be here.”

Talks have been at a standstill for more than two weeks, after Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO negotiator Mahmoud Abbas met for two straight days in Cairo to try to complete an agreement, only to find the two sides bickering about what they had--or had not--agreed on.

Now, negotiators say they will try to build on some of the compromises discussed in Cairo and lock in the details that will allow an agreement to be signed and put into effect.

In several respects, the issues appear to be more sharply defined and the gaps narrower than at any time since the talks commenced in October, despite the recent finger-pointing and delays.

On one of the most crucial issues--the size of the area in Jericho that will be under Palestinian control--Shaath said that Palestinians have dropped their demand for a region of at least 200 square kilometers and are instead focusing on specific areas they want to control.

In essence, this means that Palestinians might not object to an area of the size Israel is now proposing--about 54 square kilometers, or 21 square miles--if it includes areas the Palestinians consider critical, among them an access to the Dead Sea, all Palestinian-owned land and several religious sites, one of which fronts on the strategic Jordan River, the international border with Jordan.

“We have abandoned defining Jericho as including Cairo to Damascus,” Shaath said in an interview. “We have stopped counting mileage. Now we are talking about positions and areas, rather than counting mileage.”

Shaath also hinted that negotiators may be approaching a compromise on the difficult issue of who will control international border crossings. According to Israeli press reports, the plan proposes Palestinian and Israeli counters at crossings, with Israelis permitted to check incoming persons visually and with electronic equipment.

“On the crossings we’re close in certain aspects, but the two (the issue of crossings and the size of Jericho) are very much intertwined,” Shaath said.

Taba was the site of the earliest talks following the signing of the original Declaration of Principles between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington on Sept. 13.

The two sides were scheduled to break into smaller committees today to work out details of the agreement.

But the question of whether the April 13 deadline for withdrawal of troops can be met remained the most troubling undercurrent of the newly resumed talks. The two sides already have missed the Dec. 13 deadline envisioned in the original agreement for signing a detailed accord and beginning the withdrawal. The April 13 date must not be similarly missed, Shaath stressed in an interview.

“Never. Never. I think we will lose all trust in the Israelis’ willingness to have peace if they violate the 13th of April,” he said. He said the PLO will demand that the United States and Russia, the co-sponsors of the peace process, intervene and arbitrate if the April 13 deadline is jeopardized.

But in Jerusalem, Israeli leaders warned that until they have a satisfactory agreement, they will not begin pulling their troops out or turning over government functions in Gaza and Jericho to the Palestinians.

“I will say it again--there are no sacred dates,” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared. “In the Declaration of Principles, stages and target dates are discussed, but the target dates are based on the ability to reach an agreement.”

Peres said that Israel is obliged under the accord with the PLO to complete its pullback four months after an implementing agreement is signed, but nothing more.

Murphy reported from Taba and Parks reported from Jerusalem.