The State Department reiterated Monday that the breakdown in the peace process is due to the failure of the Palestine Liberation Organization to accept the necessary conditions for negotiations. “The current hiatus in the peace process is due to the PLO’s failure to accept the challenge,” State Department deputy spokesman Charles Redman said. He noted the PLO “did not accept” United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, “did not agree to negotiate “with Israel nor “cease violence” as efforts to bring about direct negotiations were going on.
Redman was responding to a report from Cairo that Arafat was demanding the United States respond to his proposals for a Middle East peace. The proposals, which center on acceptance by all parties of the right of self determination for the Palestinians in exchange for PLO acceptance of Resolutions 242 and 338, were sent to Washington through Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Hussein of Jordan, according to Arafat.
“It is up to the American Administration to give us a formal answer to these ideas and I am awaiting their official reply,” Arafat told reporters after he met for three hours with Mubarak. Hussein announced last month that he had given up a year-long effort to work with the PLO on the peace effort because the PLO leadership could not be relied on to keep its word.
State Department sources noted Monday that Arafat was trying to shift the blame to the U.S. in his talk with Mideast leaders to “obfuscate” his responsibility for the breakdown in the peace process.
Meanwhile, Redman said that Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, met last Saturday with Hanna Seniora, editor of the pro-PLO East Jerusalem daily AI-Fair and one of two West Bank Palestinians acceptable both to the PLO and Israel as a possible representative on a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation for negotiations with Israel. He said they discussed the Middle East peace process and other issues. The meeting took place in Washington. Seniora is touring the U.S.
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