Democratic Presidential hopeful Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado last Friday assailed the Reagan Administration for failing to get the parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict to the negotiating table.
“It is a tragedy that three and a half years have gone by under this Administration with not only no real progress in bringing the hostilities and conflicts (in the Mideast) to an end, but in fact, some steps that have exacerbated that conflict, particularly the increased militarization of all the parties to the very difficult situation in Lebanon,” Hart told a luncheon at the National Press Club here.
Continuing, Hart declared, “I think it would take very little in the case of the Middle East, and for that matter, in the case of East-West arms negotiations, to get the parties to at least begin to talk about sitting down at the bargaining table, if not actually doing so … I have seen virtually no leadership on the Middle East by this President and very little by the Secretary of State to bring the principal adversaries to the table to pursue the Camp David accords.”
Hart also said that he believed “history will judge this Administration poorly for its failure in the Middle East” and with regard to other international problems “for not taking more leadership and offering the good offices of this nation in regional conflicts.”
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