A senior Reagan Administration official reaffirmed yesterday the United States’ continued commitment to the May 17, 1983 accord it helped negotiate between Israel and Lebanon.
“The United States position with regard to the May 17th agreement is clear: we helped arrive at this agreement; we support that agreement, ” Lawrence Eagleburger, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, said in an interview on the ABC-TV “This Week With David Brinkley” program.
“As far as we’re concemed, we have said it time and again, that May 17th agreement is something we are associated with and we’re not going to walk away from it,” Eagleburger added.
The May 17 security and withdrawal agreement has become a central point of contention between the Lebanese government of President Amin Gemayel and the Syrian backed anti-government forces, composed primarily of Moslem and Druze militias, which last week took control of west Beirut.
The accord has never been formally ratified by the Lebanese government and it has not been implemented because of the stipulation which requires a complete Israeli troop withdrawal from south Lebanon on condition of a simultaneous Syrian withdrawal, which the Syrians have refused.
Israel’s position on the accord was emphasized over the weekend by the Cabinet. After a seven-hour debate, Israel affirmed that Israeli troops would remain in south Lebanon to ensure the security of its northern borders in the event that the Lebanese government scraped the accord.
There has yet to be public statements from the U.S., Israel or Lebanon indicating that the accord would be scraped. Gemayel, however, appears hard pressed by opposition factions to make some conciliatory concessions to them if he is to survive politically and form a power sharing government representative of the diversity of the Lebanese populations.
Meanwhile, with the imminent withdrawal of the 1,400 marines from the Beirut Airport to ships of the Sixth Fleet off the Lebanese coast, there is new dis- cussions here of the possibility of a United Nations peacekeeping force to move into areas evacuated by the multinational force.
Eagleburger confirmed yesterday that the idea has been discussed by the Administration “for months.” But he expressed the view that few nations would agree to send its troops into an area as volatile as the current situation which exists in Beirut.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters yesterday that the possibility of a UN force “might be worth looking into” and that the Administration has “had some consultations with the (UN) Secretary General on that.” But he admitted that the idea “is not that fleshed out yet.”
Speakes spoke to reporters on board the plane carrying President Reagan back from Califomia to Washington where he is holding talks today with King Hussein of Jordan and with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt tomorrow, Mubarak and Hussein conferred last night in Washington and were joined by Secretary of State George Shultz. The Secretary of State would not comment to reporters as he left the meeting with the two Arab leaders.
The White House talks today and tomorrow will give Reagan an opportunity to hear first hand how the U.S. redeployment plan is seen by Arab moderates in the Mideast. Officials said no breakthroughs were expected at the talks.
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