Peres Says Differences with Shamir on Peace Conference Are ‘serious’

Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres acknowledged Monday that his differences with Premier Yitzhak Shamir over an international conference for Middle East peace are “substantive and serious.”

Everyone agrees on the need for direct negotiations and only an international conference could create the framework for such negotiations, Peres said during a visit to a Jerusalem school. Shamir, for his part, has denounced an international conference as a “Soviet-Arab notion” which could lead to Israel’s isolation.

During his visit to Washington last week Shamir urged the Reagan Administration to oppose such a forum in which the Soviet Union, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, would participate. Shamir returns from the U.S. later this week.

The sharp divergence between the two leaders of the Labor-Likud unity government has raised speculation that a coalition crisis is imminent. It may be triggered when Peres meets with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo shortly. Their last meeting, in Alexandria in September, when Peres was Premier, ended with an agreement to prepare the groundwork for an international conference.

ELECTIONS IMMINENT?

Meanwhile, Labor and Likud are accusing each other of seeking to end the coalition. Labor charged that Shamir’s tough stand in Washington against an international conference was aimed at early elections. Likud countered that this was Peres’ intention when he criticized the Premier while he is still overseas.

Labor Party Secretary General Uzi Baram said in a radio interview Sunday that the party and Peres indeed favor elections now because Israel was missing opportunities for peace.