The State Department suggested today that the five-year transitional period called for in the Camp David agreements between the time on autonomy authority was established on the West Bank and Gaza and a final settlement for the territories was achieved might be shortened if a comprehensive Middle East peace treaty was reached before the five years were up. But State Department deputy spokesman Alan Romberg refused to say what the United States position would be if this occurred.
Romberg was responding to questions about a report from Amman in which King Hussein of Jordan said that if Jordan joined the autonomy negotiations he would support cutting the transitional period to the “minimum” as well as help return the occupied territories to their “owners.”
The Department spokesman said he would not comment on any diplomatic exchanges between President Reagan and Hussein except to note that when Reagan met Hussein in Washington last month, the President assured the King that he is “committed to pursue the positions that were set out” in Reagan’s September I peace initiative.
But when asked specifically about the transition period, Romberg replied: “We are interested in beginning negotiations as soon as possible for establishing the transitional period as called for in the Camp David framework. Once engaged, those negotiations would not take very long given the previous three years of negotiations. Thereafter, the talks on the final stages of peace are to begin as soon as possible, in any event no later than three years, the sooner the better.”
Noting that the Camp David agreement provides for a five-year transition period, Romberg said that “if a final peace agreement were achieved before that period expired” the parties might wish to cut the time.
Romberg had no comment on Hussein’s assertion that he was told in Washington that he must join the negotiations by the beginning of March or the Reagan initiatives may have to be abandoned.
In his speech to Jordanian officials following his three days of talks with Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat, Hussein said that the deadline for the Arabs to agree to participate in the negotiations “will be the beginning of the third month of this year. After this, they (the Reagan Administration) have other things to pre-occupy them and will not be able to deal with the cause in an appropriate manner. The stand on the initiative then will have a stage where, according to the evaluation of all observers, the possibilities of beginning anything will become difficult and the opportunity be lost.”
A translation of Hussein’s speech, broadcast in Arabic on Radio Amman, was printed in the daily Middle East report of the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service.
HUSSEIN CITES LETTER FROM REAGAN
Hussein said he received a letter from Reagan which gave a U.S. commitment to use its influence to seek the return of the “rights” and “land to their owners.” It was not clear whether Hussein was talking about the occupied territories in general or the land on which Israeli settlements have been built. But in his speech, Hussein said that when he was asked in Washington whether Jewish settlers could remain if the land was returned to the Arabs, he said he had stressed “that if the peace process takes place then these settlements will be illegal and cannot be accepted.”
The King also said that the U.S. officials told him in Washington that Jerusalem should remain united “but acknowledged that the Arab right to Jerusalem is the same as the Arab right to all the occupied territories.”
Most of Hussein’s lengthy speech seemed to be a plea to the Arab countries to back the agreements reached between Jordan and the PLO and to support Jordan’s participation in the autonomy talks. But he said that in defining their position, they have made one fundamental point: “We are sad since the beginning that we cannot relinquish even one inch of our land. We both, Jordanians and Palestinians, know very well the limit to which we can go.”
Meanwhile, State Department spokesman John Hughes said yesterday that a report that the Israeli government plans to undertake an advertising and promotion campaign in Israel to encourage Israelis to move into the West Bank “would be most unfortunate and counter-productive. The U.S. position is clear; Settlements are on obstacle to peace in the Middle East. We have previously noted our view that such settlement activity has a negative impact on hopes for early progress towards peace, stability and real security for Israel and its neighbors.”
Israeli President Yitzhak Navon, responding to questions at the National Press Club last week, denied that settlements were an obstacle to peace.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
