The Reagan Administration stressed today it still hopes that King Hussein of Jordan will decide to join the peace talks despite Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat’s rejection of President Reagan’s Mideast peace initiative.
“The important thing is the decision of King Hussein,” State Department deputy spokesman Alan Romberg said. A Department source noted that “the focus” was on Hussein, not Arafat. Hussein’s decision is expected to depend on his meeting with Arafat.
Secretary of State George Shultz, while noting today that there is no new development, said he still maintains his position expressed 10 days ago that Hussein should decide now about joining the negotiations. “I still think it’s time,” he said in an interview on NBC-TV’s “Today Show.” Hussein had said earlier that he would make a decision sometime in March.
Romberg said he would not comment on Arafat’s remarks made at a Land Day rally in Damascus yesterday. He said he had not seen the full text of the speech in which the PLO leader was quoted as saying: “There are quarters that wish the PLO would say yes to the Reagan plan so they may say we are traitors. I say to all: No to the Reagan plan or the liquidation plans.” He added that any “solution” must be based on the “resolutions” adopted by the Arab League in Fez, Morocco, last September.
However, Romberg did not that the U.S. believes “the prospects for peace would be best served through broadened Arab participation in direct negotiations based on UN security Council Resolution 242.”
SITUATION IN LEBANON
On the Lebanese negotiations, Romberg denied that special envoy Philip Habib was returning to the U.S. today because of a deadlock in the talks for the withdrawal of all foreign forces. He said that Habib had long been scheduled to return at this time to fulfill “personal commitments.” However, while in the U.S. he would be in Washington to discuss the situation. The other special envoy, Morris Draper, remains in the Middle East and was in Israel today, Romberg said.
He said he knew of no plans for Israeli Premier Menachem Begin to come to Washington. There were reports today that Begin would come here to negotiate an agreement on withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon with Reagan.
Romberg stressed that while the U.S. has always hoped for “more rapid progress,” it is “bending all our efforts together with officials of Lebanon and Israel” in order to reach an agreement on the withdrawal of all foreign forces — Syrians, PLO, and Israel.
Negotiations are presently stalled over Lebanon’s refusal with U.S. backing to allow Maj. Saad Haddad’s Christian militia to continue to operate in south Lebanon. Israel is not confident that the Lebanese army can maintain security in the area by itself once the Israeli army withdraws.
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.
