The Reagan administration maintained today that the best way to achieve peace in the Middle East was through direct talks between Israel and the Arabs rather than the international conference called for in a joint communique by King Hussein of Jordan and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
“We don’t believe that such an international conference will lead to productive results,” State Department deputy spokesman Alan Romberg said. He said the U.S. feels that the “most practical course is direct negotiations between Israel and the Arab parties concerned as envisioned by the Camp David process.”
The joint communique, issued simultaneously in Cairo and Amman yesterday after three days of talks between Hussein and Mubarak in Cairo, called for an international, conference under the auspices of the United Nations, attended by “all parties concerned, including the PLO.”
MURPHY RETURNING TO THE MIDEAST
Presumably, Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, will discuss this development when he goes to the Middle East later this week. Hussein, in a speech to the Egyptian Parliament Sunday, denounced the Camp David agreements while Mubarak, in his reply, made no mention of them. The State Department said yesterday that in its view this meant that Egypt is “fully supportive of the Camp David process.”
As is customary, largely for security reasons, Romberg would not give Murphy’s intinerary. He also would not outline the issues Murphy plans to discuss, except that of south Lebanon.
However, Romberg stressed that while the U.S. wants to “be helpful where we can” in the current Israeli-Lebanese negotiations for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from south Lebanon, the U.S. is not a participant in the negotiations and is not acting as a mediator. Romberg denied reports that Murphy is taking on some of the role of a special Mideast negotiator and will be more actively involved in the negotiations than he was on his recent four-week “fact-finding” trip to the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State George Shultz and Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir are scheduled to meet in New York next Sunday night for bilateral discussions, after both receive honorary degrees from Yeshiva University.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
