Secretary of State George Shultz said Friday that the United States was committed “to move now” toward facilitating a negotiated settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict, in order to build on the momentum that he said Jordanian King Hussein had brought to the peace process during his visit here last week.
At a press conference Friday afternoon, Shultz welcomed in particular the King’s announcement that “the Palestinians” had agreed to participate in peace negotiations on the basis of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. But in response to questions, the Secretary said the U.S. still needed a public statement from the PLO to that effect before it could consider talking with the organization. He also continued to balk at Hussein’s call for an international conference that would include the Soviet Union. Hussein suggested earlier that such a conference could provide a framework that would enable direct talks to take place between Israel and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.
“We continue to believe that the proposed international conference will not contribute to the peace process, but we will continue to seek ways in which international support for direct negotiations can be made evident,” Shultz said.
URGENCY STRESSED
Despite the unresolved differences over an acceptable format for negotiations and over U.S. conditions for meeting with the PLO, Shultz spoke with a new sense of urgency that the Administration had been avoiding since Hussein signed an agreement with the PLO in February and began urging a renewed U.S. role in the peace process.
“Time is essential,” Shultz said, quoting an earlier statement by the Jordanian King. He said that Hussein’s account of the new PLO position “is a very significant one,” since the latter has been in close consultation with the organization.
One area in which some headway had been made, Shultz said, was on the composition of a proposed joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation that would meet with Administration officials with a view to achieving direct negotiations with Israel. Shultz repeated the Administration’s position that it would not object to meeting with members of the Palestine National Council, as long as they were not also members of the PLO. Israel regards the PNC as a PLO body, while the U.S. does not. But Shultz added there remained “many obstacles which we have to overcome.”
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