Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said here Wednesday that he challenged both Soviet and Egyptian diplomats in Madrid to be more “generous” in their involvement in the Middle East peace process.
Peres’ remarks came as he addressed the opening session of the American Jewish Committee’s 82nd annual meeting, which takes place through Saturday.
Peres met Tuesday with a senior Egyptian official to discuss the Taba border dispute. The Israeli leader was in Madrid to attend the Council of the Socialist International.
Peres said he told the Egyptian that there exists in the Middle East “a real chance not only for the Israelis but for the Arabs themselves.”
He said both the Israelis and the Arabs faced a common enemy in what has become a regional dispute between “forces of fundamentalism — narrow, extreme, regressive — trying to drag the Arab world back to the Middle Ages,” and moderate Arab nations “tired of the bloodshed.”
Peres referred to the Iran-Iraq war, saying it demonstrated the enormous costs in both human and financial terms of the ongoing regional conflict. “I told him, ‘The Arabs have just one real economic commodity, and that is peace.”
Regarding the Palestinian uprising in the administered territories, Peres said he explained that “If sovereignty is their wish … we shall respect their decision.
“But the Arabs, too, have to understand,” he related, “that while they have real national desires, we have our real national security needs. A compromise can be reached if both sides understand fully and respect the needs of the other party.”
Peres said he asked the official, “Where is your voice of peace, clear and loud? Where are your compromises?”
During his meeting with Alexander Zotov, a Soviet official also attending the Socialist International meeting, Peres said he criticized the Soviet’s self-proclaimed era of “new thinking.”
“I asked, ‘Why can’t you be a little more dramatic? Why can’t you be more generous? You will wake up and find out it’s a little too late.”
MUST BE ‘MORE FORTHCOMING’
Peres said that if that if the Soviets wished to play a larger role in the Middle East, they would need to be “more forthcoming.” He did not elaborate.
Responding to an audience member’s question about the upcoming superpower summit, Peres said he could see it leading to a renewal of the Mideast peace process.
He said the success of the planned visit in June by Secretary of State George Shultz will depend on the outcome of the summit. “Can they reach an understanding? In my judgment, yes,” he said.
Peres did not discuss the differences between his Labor party and the Likud bloc led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, other than to address North American Jewish concerns about their apparent disunity.
“You are disappointed with the division that exists within Israel. But I ask, when were the Jewish people ever united? When were they ever of one mind, of one opinion?”
After the AJCommittee meeting, Peres proceeded to Chicago. Details of his week-long visit to North America were unavailable at press time, but the foreign minister was expected to make stops in Toronto and Los Angeles before returning to New York next week.
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