News Analysis: Hussein’s U.S. Visit Yields No Major Breakthroughs

King Hussein’s tepid reaction to the Israeli proposal for Palestinian elections in the administered territories appears to have dashed hopes of an imminent breakthrough in the Middle East peace process.

The outcome of the Jordanian monarch’s visit here last week also appears to confirm that the Bush administration will stick to its policy of moving step by step to bring about direct Arab-Israeli negotiations, rather than proposing a bold new peace initiative.

The only tangible product of the Bush administration’s round of meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Hussein is the Shamir plan.

It calls for Palestinians to elect representatives who would negotiate with Israel the arrangements for an interim period of Palestinian self-rule in the territories. After a period of several years, separate negotiations would be called to determine the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

President Bush apparently tried to convince Hussein of the merits of the Shamir plan, which the American leader has endorsed.

“I reiterated my belief that properly designed and mutually acceptable elections could, as an initial step, contribute to a process leading to negotiations on the final status of the West Bank and Gaza,” Bush said in the White House Rose Garden last Wednesday, after his 70-minute meeting with Hussein.

Hussein, in his statement after the meeting, did not mention the elections. But administration officials saw an agreement to at least not reject the idea when Hussein told the president during the Rose Garden ceremony, “I can assure you that I fully support you and all your efforts” in “bringing the conflict to a just and durable conclusion.”

‘MAY BE WORTH LOOKING AT’

The Jordanian leader went a step further Thursday, after meeting with Secretary of State James Baker.

“The idea of elections might be worth looking at within the context of a whole process that hopefully will come together to get us from where we are now to a final settlement,” Hussein told reporters at the State Department.

But he added, “Otherwise the idea is out of context.”

Administration sources have stressed that Hussein, Mubarak and other Arab leaders have been asked to keep an open mind until Israel devises a plan for holding the elections.

Shamir has made clear that the elections would be held under Israeli auspices and has rejected Mubarak’s proposal that they be supervised by the United Nations.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, on the other hand, would agree to a U.N.-supervised election, but not an election “under the occupiers,” PLO leader Yasir Arafat said in a television interview broadcast Thursday.

Speaking on the Public Broadcasting Service’s “MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour,” Arafat said the PLO would only agree to elections as a “package deal” that contained a timetable for Israeli withdrawal.

Arafat, who was interviewed in Tunis on April 18, also said that the referendum should not elect negotiators, but the leaders of a Palestinian state to be established in the territories.

During a brief meeting with reporters Thursday, Bush said he was “very pleased” by his talks with the three Middle East leaders.

“Things are moving, ” he said. “Now we’ve got to assess where we go, what the next step is.”

ARAFAT WOULD MEET ONLY WITH BAKER

Hussein, in his White House remarks, indicated that the next step is for Israel to negotiate with the PLO. “Peace can neither be negotiated nor achieved without PLO participation,” he said.

The king said the U.S. decision to hold talks with the PLO has “improved the prospects for peace,” as has Arafat’s announcement last December accepting Israel’s right to exist and renouncing terrorism.

Arafat, in his television interview, said the PLO discussions with the United States are being held “in a very positive atmosphere.”

But he said he would not personally meet with Robert Pelletreau, the U.S. ambassador in Tunisia, who is the only American official author ized to talk with the PLO. He said he would only meet with Secretary of State Baker.

Arafat maintained that by talking with the United States, the PLO is indirectly negotiating with Israel, something which Shamir has vehemently denied.

He said this occurred before, in 1981 and in 1982, before and after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, when the PLO met with Philip Habib, then the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East.

But Arafat said he was ready to meet with Shamir, whom he repeatedly referred to as “Mr. No.”

“With whom am I to make peace?” Arafat asked. “Peace has to be between enemies.”

While Arafat appears to have accepted Shamir’s insistence on direct negotiations, Hussein again called last week for an international peace conference, which he first proposed during his visit to the White House in the spring of 1987.

“I believe the bases for peace are already established,” the king said in his White House remarks. “What is required is to implement them.

“The forum for a negotiated comprehensive settlement is a peace conference under the auspices of the United Nations,” he said.

U.S. OPPOSES CONFERENCE NOW

The Jordanian leader added that “any steps taken should lead to such a conference, if our efforts to arrive at a comprehensive settlement are not to be diverted.”

As he did after his meeting with Mubarak, Bush indicated that the United States was open to such a conference, but not at this time.

“A properly structured international conference could serve, at the appropriate time, as a means to facilitate direct negotiations between the parties,” the president said.

Both Bush and Hussein reaffirmed that negotiations must be based on U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. “Through these negotiations, peace and security for Israel and all states and legitimate Palestinian political rights can be realized,” Bush said.

The president again stressed that “the time has come to encourage fresh thinking, to avoid sterile debate and to focus on the difficult but critical work of structuring a serious negotiating process.”