Arens Says U.S. Did Not Press PLO Talks, Steps to Ease Tensions

Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens denied Tuesday that anyone in the Bush administration had suggested this week that Israel negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

He also said that no U.S. official had proposed a series of steps to ease tensions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, contrary to media reports that such suggestions would be conveyed.

Arens said that in his meetings with administration officials Monday, he did not dwell on Israel’s opposition to the U.S. dialogue with the PLO, since the Israeli position that such talks are “counterproductive” is well known.

The Israeli foreign minister had a nearly two-hour meeting Monday with Secretary of State James Baker, followed by shorter meetings with President Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle and Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser. He said none had suggested Israel consider negotiating with the PLO.

However, Baker told a congressional subcommittee Tuesday that if advancing the peace process “takes talks with the PLO, we should not rule that out.” [See related story.]

Arens had no comment when asked about this during his address to a luncheon sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

But he made clear in his address that the PLO cannot be a participant in efforts to bring about a Middle East peace settlement.

He said the only reason Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip say that the PLO is their representative is that to do otherwise risks being killed.

FAVORS JORDANIAN ROLE

Arens said to grant the PLO such status would also mark the “beginning of the end” of Jordan and its rulers and would further the PLO’s efforts to subvert Israeli Arabs.

The foreign minister stressed that the negotiators for a peace settlement should be Jordan, the Palestinians living in the territories and possibly a third Arab country now at war with Israeli. He did not name which one.

When a reporter asked for Arens’ comment on an assertion, made last week by a major Israeli think tank, that Israel cannot continue to refuse to talk to the PLO, he replied, “There is no shortage of Israelis who think they know what should be done.”

Arens was in Washington to lay the ground work for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s visit to Washington in April and to present Israel’s views on the peace process as the Bush administration formulates its own Middle East policy.

But as Arens arrived in Washington, the State Department let it be known that it plans to ask both Israel and the PLO to take confidence-building steps that could foster an atmosphere conducive to peace negotiations.

These include asking Israel to reopen schools and release some of the Palestinians imprisoned without trial during the uprising. The PLO reportedly will be asked to bring a halt to violent demonstrations in the territories and to prevent its member groups from attempting to infiltrate Israel from Lebanon.

But Arens insisted Baker “did not say anything like that to me.” However, he added, “we did discuss the importance of reducing tensions in the area, bringing down the scope and the level of violence that we have to deal with.”

Arens told his listeners “if anyone has a prescription of how it will be done, I would certainly welcome it. It is a very difficult problem, and there is no magic solution.”

The foreign minister did point out that Israel already has released some prisoners in the Gaza Strip, has begun reopening schools there and intends to reduce the visibility of Israeli troops in the territories.