President Reagan’s meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak tomorrow and King Hussein of Jordan September 30 are being viewed by the Reagan Administration as an opportunity to get the stalled Middle East peace process moving.
A senior Administration official pointedly noted that the United States is committed to the goal enunciated by Arab leaders to “use this year as the year of opportunity … to get to direct negotiations” between Israel and the Arabs.
The two Arab leaders are in the U.S. to participate in the 40th anniversary session of the United Nations General Assembly. Mubarak will address the General Assembly on Wednesday and Hussein on Friday.
PRESIDENT’S PERSONAL INTEREST
While normal procedure has been for Secretary of State George Shultz to meet with visiting foreign leaders in New York during the General Assembly session, the Administration apparently wants the White House meetings to assure the Arab leaders of the President’s personal interest in the Mideast peace process.
Shultz, who is scheduled to address the General Assembly tomorrow, plans to return to Washington after his speech for the Reagan-Mubarak visit.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir is to address the General Assembly on October 2 and Premier Shimon Peres on October 20. Both are also scheduled to meet with Reagan.
Mubarak, who arrived in Washington yesterday, is scheduled to meet Reagan after a working lunch with Vice President George Bush. Before that he will meet with Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger and discuss economic issues with Administration officials led by Treasury Secretary James Baker.
MUBARAK’S OBJECTIVE IN THE PEACE PROCESS
A senior Administration official, briefing reporters on Friday on the Mubarak visit, stressed that the Egyptian President wants to get things moving in the peace process. He noted that when Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel it did not want this to be the last step. “Egypt has every motivation to expand the process and to bring into the negotiating process the Jordanians, the Palestinians, and hopefully one of these days, the Syrians,” the official said.
The present impasse is due to the fact that the U.S. does not see how the present position of Hussein will provide a “mechanism” leading to direct negotiations between Israel and a delegation of Jordanians and Palestinians, the official said. He said the goal is “not peace between the Arabs and the United States, but peace with Israel and the Arabs.”
The official said the problem is not so much the proposed Palestinian delegates for a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to meet with the U.S., but Jordan’s insistance on an international conference for negotiations. He said while the U.S. understands the need for an “international context,” it believes that an international conference will result in “political rhetoric,” not negotiations.
In addition, Jordan wants the five permanent members of the UN Security Council as participants, which would include the Soviet Union. The participation of the Soviets would add to the trouble, not lessen the trouble in getting anything started, the official said.
The official also stressed that Hussein understands that the U.S. will not meet with any members of the Palestine Liberation Organization. This is why the U.S. has held up approval of the list of Palestinians for the joint delegation submitted to Washington by Hussein.
“We are interested in getting the message out that our terms for a meeting with the PLO remains what they were as announced in 1975,” the official said. “We are not going to make them any harder, or any easier.”
U.S. WON’T FOLLOW THATCHER’S MOVE
The official indicated that the U.S. would not follow the move announced by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Jordan Friday. She said that British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe would meet with two PLO members in London if they renounced violence and said they accepted UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. (See separate story, P.I.)
The official said that when Hussein was in Washington in May he maintained that the PLO met the U.S. conditions because its leader, Yasir Arafat, assured him that the PLO accepted the two resolutions and agreed to Israel’s right to exist. But the official said that if the PLO does accept the U.S. conditions “let them say it very simply, very clearly. They have not done so. They have danced around it.”
The official also stressed that one of the hindrances to progress in recent months has been the upsurge of violence in the West Bank. He reiterated Shultz’s statement that while violence cannot be allowed to derail the peace process, “We just can’t take seriously anyone that is pushing violence as a participant in the peace process.”
The official,reiterating that the U.S. wants direct negotiations, explained that those negotiations would lead to an end to the state of war between Israel and Jordan, the obtaining of the “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,” and secure recognized borders for Israel and Jordan.
The official also pointed to recent improvements in relations between Israel and Egypt and expressed the hope that the talks in which the two countries have been engaged will lead to an early settlement of the Taba controversy and the return of the Egyptian Ambassador to Israel. (Related story, P. l.)
SEEKING TO AVOID ANOTHER AWACS CONFRONTATION
Not mentioned is the Administration’s hope that movement in the peace process can be demonstrated by the visits of Mubarak and Hussein so that the Administration can avoid a bloody battle with Congress, similar to that over the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia in 1981, over its present plans to sell arms to Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, in testifying before Senate and House subcommittees last week, stressed that the Administration plans to go ahead with sales of fighter planes and anti-aircraft systems to Jordan and to restock existing Saudi arms.
Majorities in both the Senate and House are on record as opposed to any sale to Jordan unless Amman is committed to negotiations with Israel and this is mandated in the 1986 Foreign Aid Act. Sen. Alan Cranston (D. Calif.) is prepared to introduce a joint resolution opposed to arms sales to the Saudis as soon as it is announced.
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