Israel, Jordan Move Talks to Familiar Turf

Against the stark backdrop of the barren Edomite Mountains, sheltered from the scorching sun by a gaily striped tent, Israelis fulfilled a dream Monday by sitting down on their land to talk peace with Jordanians.

The yellow-and-white air-conditioned tent in which they met symbolically straddled the cease-fire line in the Arava Valley. It is one of the hottest places on Earth and divides the southern regions of the two nations.

Surrounded by barbed wire and minefields eight miles north of the twin ports of Aqaba and Eilat, negotiators opened two days of talks on marking their disputed border, sharing scarce water resources and ensuring border security.

They paused only long enough for reporters to take pictures and to give opening speeches before shedding their jackets, rolling up their sleeves and beginning to haggle.

“You see, Eli, you are already making me sweat,” a Jordanian diplomat said jokingly to Elyakim Rubinstein, head of Israel’s negotiating team, as the Jordanian pointed to his perspiration-soaked shirt.

It was 104 degrees in the valley as the talks began. Both Israeli and Jordanian television broadcast live the opening speeches and a news conference.

By day’s end, both sides were describing the talks as “very positive” and the site--a nature reserve--as inspirational. But they offered no details of their eight-hour session.

The two negotiating teams have met periodically in Washington for more than two years. But the Israelis have repeatedly called on the Jordanians and other Arab states to move the talks to the region, arguing that only then would the notion of a comprehensive settlement between Israel and its neighbors seem real to Arabs and Jews.

The Jordanians sat on their side of the cease-fire line, on the east side of a rectangular table straddling the line, and the Israelis sat on theirs. But Faiz Tarawneh, head of the Jordanian team, seemed relaxed as he gave the first speech.

“It is our expectation that the satisfactory results of the negotiations and accepted agreements will culminate in a treaty of peace that delineates carefully our rights and duties under conditions of peace,” said Tarawneh, who also is Jordan’s ambassador to Washington.

“As our meeting begins, we should be motivated to live up to the forthcoming historical responsibilities,” he said, noting that King Hussein will hold his first public meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin next Monday in Washington, hosted by President Clinton.

Rubinstein said in his opening remarks: “We are at a very warm spot of our two countries. The temperature is high. It is only natural to express the hope that the Israeli-Jordanian peaceful relations will be warm forever.”

Both sides acknowledged the quickening pace of Israeli-Jordanian negotiations but cautioned that much work remains to be done before a peace treaty can be made final. The 30-member teams quickly broke up into three specialized committees to deal separately with the question of the border, with security and with water, energy and environment.

On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will travel to the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea to meet with Jordanian Prime Minister Abdul Salam Majali.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who arrived in Israel on Sunday hoping to push forward deadlocked Israeli-Syrian talks, will join the two foreign ministers at a Dead Sea hotel for talks on three-way economic projects.

“The overwhelming majority of the Israeli public supports peace with Jordan,” Rubinstein told his Jordanian counterparts Monday.

Indeed, leaders of the opposition Likud Party--who vehemently condemned Israel’s agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization granting limited self-government to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip--have supported the talks with Jordan.

Peace with Jordan is a popular notion in Israel because Israelis expect they will pay little and benefit greatly from signing a formal peace treaty with the Hashemite Kingdom. Although the two countries have technically been in a state of war for 46 years, the border between them has been quiet since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War; they have secretly cooperated on security issues and some water-sharing projects.

“Most people here pretty much support the peace process and are very excited about the potential for peace,” said David Lehrer, secretary general of kibbutz Getura, a collective farm just five miles north of the negotiating tent that may lose some of its fields if the Jordanians succeed in pressing their claims for land.

Even if Getura should lose some of its lands, Lehrer said, “I could not be opposed to a peace agreement between Jordan and Israel on the basis of a loss of a number of (acres) in the Arava. If a sacrifice has to be made, it has to be made.”

Jordan is laying claim to 147 square miles of the Arava desert, much of which now is being cultivated by collective Israeli farms. At least two Israeli collectives stand to lose virtually all their arable land. But kibbutzniks hope that economic cooperation between the two countries will boost regional tourism and trade and compensate them for any losses.

Such an optimistic outlook is not shared by all Jordanians. Hussein faces opposition from Islamic fundamentalists and from some leftist groups that have condemned Jordan’s negotiations with Israel.

“What is taking place today and what will follow is a source of great sorrow and sadness,” Hamzah Mansour, spokesman for the Islamic Action Front, told Reuters news service in Amman on Monday. The front is the second-largest bloc in the Jordanian Parliament.