The Reagan administration indicated Monday that while it plans to continue working for a solution to the Arab-Israel conflict until its term expires in January, Secretary of State George Shultz may have made his last trip to the Middle East.
White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater conceded that Shultz “was not particularly optimistic” after his three-hour meeting Sunday with Israeli Premier Yitzhak Shamir.
Shultz emerged from the meeting to report that there was no change in Shamir’s opposition to the peace plan the secretary proposed in February.
Shamir is opposed to Shultz’s proposal for an international conference to set the stage for negotiations between Israel and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. He also is against the secretary’s proposed three-year timetable for deciding the final status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He prefers the five-year timetable specified in the Camp David accords.
After meeting with Shamir, an apparently frustrated Shultz warned Israel that its continued occupation of the territories is “a dead-end street.”
But the U.S. official also got little satisfaction in Jordan, where King Hussein, with whom he met Saturday, refused to enter negotiations unless he had a commitment from Israel to give up territory.
‘A MESSAGE OF HOPE’
The only support Shultz received was from Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who said the secretary brought “a message of hope to the region.”
Fitzwater said Shultz, who was in Syria on Monday, “wanted to touch bases with everybody, one more time, to see if he could get any movement.”
The White House official, though, did not rule out a return to the region. “If some break would occur, or some progress could be made, I’m sure the secretary is always available,” he said.
However, he indicated that if future trips to the Middle East were deemed advisable they most likely would be undertaken by Richard Murphy, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, who he said “will continue to be available for talks at any time.”
“We intend to stay engaged, we are ready to talk at any time,” Fitzwater stressed. “We want to leave the next administration with as good a platform as possible to deal with the issue,” he said.
But the White House official gave a bleak assessment of the chances of resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute, saying, “Prospects are the same as they have been for the last 2,000 years.”
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.
