Christopher Calls Mideast Trip’s Limited Results a Success : Diplomacy: Secretary of state’s four-day tour brings no breakthrough. But he sees ‘best opportunity’ for peace.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher wrapped up four days of Middle East diplomacy Sunday, claiming success for his own modest objectives but falling far short of a breakthrough in the peace process.

On his swing through the region, Christopher did little more than reassure Arabs and Israelis of Washington’s continuing interest in regional peace. But for the time being, that seems to be enough.

“This trip has reinforced my feeling that there is a tremendous opportunity to move now to a comprehensive peace, possibly the best opportunity in the 2 1/2 years I have been in office,” Christopher said at a joint news conference with Jordan’s King Hussein.

For the first time in months, a wave of optimism has washed across the region, with Israeli and Arab officials all talking hopefully of improved chances for peace.

Christopher’s purpose was to encourage that mood and to apply U.S. pressure to keep the Arabs and Israelis focused on the difficult negotiations that lie ahead.

On his final day in the region, Christopher apparently convinced Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat that it is pointless to make a fuss if Israeli and Palestinian negotiators do not agree by July 1 on details of extending Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank. Israel and the PLO agreed in April to complete the work by the end of June, a goal that now seems out of reach.

On Saturday, Arafat’s Cabinet suggested that the Palestinians might seek international arbitration if Israel failed to agree by July 1 to a plan to withdraw Israeli troops from most of the West Bank, turn much of the governmental administration over to the Palestinian Authority and clear the way for Palestinian elections.

But on Sunday, after talks with Christopher, Arafat said only, “We hope that by the first of July we will have something concrete” on self-rule in the West Bank. He suggested no consequences should that hope go unfulfilled.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin underscored his government’s commitment to the peace agreement with the Palestinians but said that the July 1 goal may not be met.

According to a senior official present at the weekly meeting of the Israeli Cabinet, Rabin stressed that the date was a target, not a deadline. The prime minister reportedly added that it is more important to ensure that security arrangements are properly organized in advance of the next phase than to meet a specific deadline.

Christopher headed for home following his Sunday meetings with Arafat in Jericho, the West Bank oasis town that is already under Palestinian administration, and with Hussein in Amman.

The results of the trip were extremely modest. During a stop in Damascus, Christopher obtained Syrian President Hafez Assad’s consent to start military-to-military talks with Israel on June 27, a step that had been widely anticipated for at least a week.

And in Cairo, Christopher brought Rabin and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak together for a meeting that seemed to patch up recent disputes between countries that have been officially at peace since 1979. It is far from clear how this will be translated into a peace agreement between Israel and Syria before election campaigns in the United States and Israel intrude early next year.

Administration officials say that U.S. mediators have begun detailed--but separate--talks with Israeli and Syrian negotiators. A senior official said the Americans are, in effect, advancing Syrian arguments in their talks with the Israelis and vice versa, a procedure he said should clarify issues.

But skeptics argue that both Rabin and Assad are more concerned about their relations with the United States than they are about making peace with each other.

In a related development Sunday, a group of Israeli residents of the Golan Heights demanded an immediate national referendum on the issue of whether the strategically crucial northern territory captured by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war should now be returned to Syria as part of a peace settlement.

Rabin has agreed that a referendum should be conducted on the issue but only once the terms of any negotiated settlement are known.

Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Jerusalem contributed to this report.