President Reagan has denied that the United States has been disengaging itself from the Middle East process, but stressed that it was up to the Arab states and Israel to agree toward direct negotiations.
“We are not getting into the direct negotiations,” Reagan said at a nationally-televised press conference last Thursday night.” “That’s none of our business.”
But the President said the U.S. has made it clear that “we’d do whatever we could to help bring the warring parties together; in effect, you might say, continue the camp David process and continue to try to find more countries that would do as Egypt did and make peace.”
Reagan added that because of the efforts of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Hussein of Jordan there was now a “reasonable chance” that negotiations would occur. He called Mubarak’s efforts “great” and said he was complimented for them during his visit to the White House earlier this month. The President denied Mubarak left Washington “disappointed” and indicated that the U.S. would be willing to meet with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation as Mubarak has proposed. But the President said he made it clear that such a delegation could not include the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The U.S. will not meet with the PLO because of their refusal to accept United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and “they refuse to agree on or admit that Israel has the right to exist as a nation,” Reagan said. He added that there are many Palestinians who do not feel they are represented by the PLO, “for example, many of those who are living and holding offices on the West Bank.”
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