Israel-Jordan Meeting Paves Way for Talks

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Jordanian Prime Minister Abdul Salam Majali met here at the lowest point on Earth on Wednesday to pave the way for a formal end to their countries’ 46-year-old conflict.

The first public summit in the region between leaders of the former adversaries was presided over by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who lauded Jordan and Israel for their vision.

“This ancient land’s cries for peace are finally being heard,” he said. “To a troubled world, you send forth a simple message that exalts our vision and strengthens our faith--that the scars of war can be healed, the divisions of memory can be overcome, peace between Arab and Jew can be made.”

Anticipating White House talks Monday in Washington between Jordan’s King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, both sides hinted that they will announce an end to the state of belligerency that dates to Israel’s creation in 1948.

At a news conference earlier Wednesday, Hussein heralded the recent progress in relations between the two nations as the “breaking of a new dawn.” He said he hoped to sign a formal peace treaty with Israel as soon as possible, although he noted that the two sides “still have a long way to go.” When pressed on timing of a treaty, he replied, “A month might be too soon.”

The king, whose secret talks with Israeli leaders have gone on for decades but never bore fruit until now, added that Jordan is prepared to move ahead without Syria: “We have taken a sovereign decision regarding our right to move.”

But he made clear that Jordanians shared the Syrian goal of a comprehensive peace that would end all aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict and in which Damascus would play a central role.

At the talks here in the Dead Sea, the Jordanian and Israeli delegations discussed five issues on which they hope to make progress as a foundation for permanent peace, senior U.S. sources said. These include plans for cooperation in developing areas of joint interest, roads from Jordan through Israel to Egypt, a framework for trade, civil aviation links and a transnational park.

Among the ideas on the table: an airport to serve the Red Sea tourist and port cities of Aqaba in Jordan and Eilat in Israel, and a canal to take water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to ease environmental, water and power problems, participants said.

As preliminary steps, Jordan and Israel agreed Wednesday to develop a master plan for developing the Jordan Rift Valley and to find means to facilitate new border crossings for third-party nationals, they said in a final communique. But much of the work they discussed will be dealt with Monday.

On Wednesday, the air was thick with accolades and historic claims by all sides.

“It is time for peace. The people desire it,” Peres said at the opening ceremony held at a hotel overlooking the salty waters of the Dead Sea. “The land needs it. The Dead Sea, silent and deep, may become a symbol of new life.”

He also said that, when Christopher first raised the idea of a direct meeting in the region six months ago, the idea seemed impossible. Now, he noted, he has a sense of frustration “that we waited so long” to make peace. And of all peace efforts with the four Arab front-line states, negotiations with Jordan enjoy the greatest public support in Israel.

Majali, who also serves as Jordan’s foreign minister, described the talks as “vital and critical moments which historians shall cherish and poets shall relish. They will be recorded in the annals of history in block letters, for they separate the age between peace and war, construction and destruction, and even life and death,” he said.

The subsequent closed talks were characterized by a participant as “relaxed and open. Both sides have a problem-solving approach,” he said.

That amiable mood offered a sharp contrast to the atmosphere that prevailed just nine months ago, when these talks were launched by President Clinton. In Washington, the United States then had to cajole low-level officials from Jordan and Israel to discuss basics; now, in the region, independent of American mediators, senior officials from the countries are conducting friendly conversations about a range of issues.

This meeting, conducted in sweltering heat, fell on the anniversary of the 1951 assassination in Jerusalem of King Abdullah, grandfather of the current Jordanian monarch, who witnessed the shooting.

Peres paid tribute to Abdullah, who he said was the first Jordanian monarch to hold secret talks with Israeli leaders and laid the foundation for “a unique relationship--hidden and open” that has endured erratically “even in the gloomy days of open warfare. . . . The silent pledge of the wise king became the destiny of his grandson,” who, Peres said, had “demonstrated stamina in the face of uninvited dangers . . . and shown courage in reading impending opportunities.”

The changing relationship between the two states was reflected in vignettes throughout the day. A Jordanian soldier asked an Israeli official what she thought about being in the Arab state for the first time. An Israeli journalist searched all corners of the isolated hotel for a souvenir labeled “Jordan.” When she couldn’t find anything, a Jordanian gift shop attendant offered to write it in Arabic for her on a T-shirt.

At the end of Wednesday’s talks, as he was leaving the Dead Sea Spa Hotel to take a helicopter back to Israel, Peres stopped to invite Majali to visit Jerusalem. “Thank you very much,” the Jordanian premier replied. “When the time is right, we will do it.”

But the precariousness of peace was also underscored Wednesday when Israeli warplanes hit bases of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, or Party of God, in southern Lebanon. In stark contrast to their work with the Palestinians and Jordan, the Israelis and their neighbors in Syria and Lebanon have not made any breakthroughs in their peace processes.