State Dept. Says Kissinger, in Meeting with PLO Official, Was Not Conducting ‘back Channel’ Talks Fo

The State Department stressed today that when former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met a Palestine Liberation Organization official in Morocco last November, he was doing so as a “private citizen” and was not conducting “back channel” talks for the Reagan Administration.

Department spokesman John Hughes, in a statement defending the former Secretary, also rejected the claim in a published newspaper story today that the meeting had caused “complications” in the U.S. effort to get King Hussein of Jordan to join in the Middle East peace negotiations.

“Neither that conversation nor any of Dr. Kissinger’s private activities have been a complicating factor in our diplomacy or have delayed the process,” Hughes said.

He said Kissinger’s efforts had been “mischaracterized” in The Washington Post story which revealed that Kissinger had met with Ahmed Dajani, a member of the PLO executive committee and a top aide to PLO chief Yasir Arafat. Kissinger was in Morocco at the time for a meeting of the American-Moroccan Foundation, a private foundation of which he is cochairman of the Board of Trustees.

KISSINGER EXPLAINS HIS MEETING

Kissinger, appearing on the NBC-TV “Today Show” this morning, said his meeting with Dajani was not a 30-minute private tete-a-tete as the Post reported but in full view of all those attending a party at King Hassan of Morocco’s Moroccan Academy. Dajani apparently is a member of the Academy. Kissinger said he was brought over to meet Dajani as a Palestinian and did not know he was an official of the PLO.

He said their conversation consisted of Dajani telling him that the U.S. should change its policy toward the PLO and he explaining why the U.S. should maintain it.

It was Kissinger, who as Secretary of State in 1975, made a pledge to Israel that the U.S. would not negotiate with the PLO. That policy “remains unchanged,” Hughes said today. “We will not recognize, not negotiate with that organization until it accepts United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and recognizes Israel’s right to exist.”

SHULTZ VALUES KISSINGER’S COUNSEL

Hughes added that “actions of private citizens, including former officials, do not change nor alter U.S. policy.” At the same time, he stressed that Secretary of State George Shultz “highly values Dr. Kissinger’s counsel and support and will continue to talk to him.” He said Kissinger has been “scrupulous in keeping the (State) Department and the Administration in general fully informed” about his trips to the Middle East.

He said Kissinger talked to Shultz about his Middle East trip last November and has talked to him about his upcoming trip there. But Hughes stressed that on all of his travels, Kissinger is acting as a private citizen.

The Washington Post story said that Phillip Habib, President Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East, had to explain the Kissinger meeting to King Hussein in London last month because when Hussein learned of it, he feared the U.S. was working out a separate arrangement with the PLO which would exclude Jordan.

Hussein has been seeking PLO approval to enter the peace negotiations as representative of the Palestinians, as urged by President Reagan in his September 1 peace initiative.

Hughes refused to comment directly on any conversations with Hussein. But he noted that in all negotiations, especially in the Middle East, questions are always being raised that have to be clarified.