Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has politely declined an offer by the United Nations to mediate Israel’s dispute with the Palestinians.
But he assured a visiting U.N. official here Monday that Israel was keenly interested in active U.S. involvement in Middle East peace efforts.
Shamir conferred with Jean-Claude Aime, a special envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar who was invited to Jerusalem by the Israeli government.
Aime, who is Haitian, is the senior Middle East expert in the secretary-general’s office. He offered to serve as mediator himself.
Israeli sources said Shamir assured the U.N. envoy that Israel is as anxious as Perez de Cuellar to ease the tense atmosphere in the region.
He reiterated his government’s commitment to Israel’s May 1989 peace initiative and said he was ready to begin negotiations with Arab states and local Palestinians.
Aime met Shamir after visiting the administered territories. He will report back to the secretary-general in New York.
His mission, announced June 13, was planned before the Israeli invitation, which Perez de Cuellar described as “an interesting coincidence.”
Aime also met with Foreign Minister David Levy, who was discharged Monday from a hospital in Afula, where he had been since suffering a mild heart attack on June 14.
Shamir told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that he believed Washington’s decision to suspend its dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization would facilitate the peace process through other avenues.
He dismissed as “PLO hysteria” the concern that the U.S. move would exacerbate tensions in the region.
Shamir declined to discuss with Knesset members the substance of the letter he is drafting in response to President Bush’s query last week about the new Israeli government’s peace policy.
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