Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who received a rousing welcome at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference here last month, got an equally enthusiastic reception at an Arab American gathering last week.
Speaking last Friday night to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Christopher pledged the United States would “not only seem evenhanded” but “actually be evenhanded” in dealing with the parties to the Middle East conflict.
At the State Department briefing Monday, spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters that Christopher’s comments did not signify any change in policy.
“It intended to convey our strong desire to be a full partner, be an honest broker in the next phase of the peace negotiations, to consider fully the views of all the parties,” Boucher said, adding, “We don’t think anybody should read anything more than that into the comment.”
Christopher praised the Palestinian delegation’s decision to return to the peace talks this week as “difficult and courageous.”
He told the Arab American leaders, as he had told the AIPAC leaders in March, that they would “always have access” to him.
The secretary told the gathering about his recent trip to the Middle East, poking fun at his own sphinxlike persona as he recounted a story about a photograph of himself standing next to the Sphinx in Egypt.
“I knew I had made a mistake when I let that picture be taken,” Christopher said, adding that someone “trying, I guess, to be helpful” said at one point, ‘In case you wondered, the one on the left is Mr. Christopher.'”
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