Jordan’s Hussein Sees Trade Link With Israel : Mideast: King declares he is ready to negotiate removal of economic barriers. He says he would meet with Rabin publicly.

King Hussein of Jordan said Wednesday that he is ready to negotiate a free trade deal with Israel that would end an Arab economic boycott in exchange for curbs on Israel’s tariffs, industrial subsidies and other policies designed to protect its domestic economy.

“We hope a time may come when we will have a Middle East NAFTA,” Hussein said in reference to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

But he said Israel must agree to end protectionist measures on its side--measures that would continue to inhibit trade between Israel and Jordan and between Israel and the Palestinians even if the boycott was lifted.

“We’ll have to have equal rights and equal opportunities,” he said. “The boycott is on either side.”

Wrapping up a visit to the United States--which included a medical checkup at the Mayo Clinic, where physicians said he seems free of a cancer diagnosed several years ago--Hussein said that he hopes that Israel and all of its Arab neighbors will soon conclude a comprehensive peace settlement.

Although the monarch made it clear that he is reluctant to break the Arab consensus by concluding a peace treaty before other regimes--especially Syria--are ready to do so, he said he is willing to meet publicly with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before a comprehensive settlement is reached.

By offering to negotiate an end to the boycott and by announcing that he is ready to talk publicly to Rabin, Hussein clearly hopes to speed up the sluggish Mideast peace process.

But, in his characteristically cautious style, he selected gestures that are unlikely to offend Syria or its president, Hafez Assad.

The nations of the Arab League imposed the boycott in stages shortly after Israel gained its independence in an effort to destroy the developing Jewish state.

Hussein said the primary boycott, which banned Arab states from doing business directly with Israel, should remain in force until both sides reach a settlement on ending protectionist measures.

But he said the secondary boycott, which prohibits Arab nations from doing business with non-Israeli companies that contribute to the Israeli economy, is disintegrating “very, very rapidly,” a development that he indicated he supports.

U.S. officials say that the secondary phase of the boycott is seldom enforced these days, although there has been no official announcement of its end.

Despite the shrinking economic impact, however, the issue retains a strong emotional wallop as a demonstration of Arab resistance to Israel’s existence.

By saying he is ready to meet publicly with Rabin, Hussein staked out a position well in advance of the Arab consensus.

So far, along with the Palestinians, the only Arab states to have held summit-level talks with Israel are Egypt and Morocco.

“I hope an opportunity (for a meeting with Rabin) will arise before too long,” Hussein said during a photo-taking session prior to a meeting with Secretary of State Warren Christopher. “I would certainly have that in mind.

“Our people are meeting. We are negotiating,” he said. “It is only normal that such a meeting will take place. It’s normal when moving toward peace that people meet.”

Public talks between Hussein and Rabin would be unprecedented, although the monarch acknowledged to a small group of reporters that he has frequently met in secret with Israeli leaders.

“There is an agreement that nothing should be said (publicly) about Jordan-Israel contacts, but there have been such contacts since the enactment of (U.N. Security Council) Resolution 242” in 1967, he said.

Israel and Jordan agreed on a comprehensive agenda for peace negotiations in September, shortly after Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed their agreement on Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

Jordanian and Israeli officials have said the agenda is so comprehensive that it forms the framework for an eventual peace treaty.

After a four-month break, negotiations resumed in Washington this week between Israel and each of its Arab neighbors--Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinians.

Israel and the PLO also are negotiating in Egypt in an effort to work out the practical details of the September peace agreement.