U.S. to Try to Persuade Hussein to Join Peace Process

Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders will fly to Jordan to try to persuade King Hussein to join the peace process now underway between Israel and Egypt, the State Department announced today.

Department spokesman George Sherman said that Saunders, who is Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, will personally bring Hussein the answers to questions he posed to the U.S. recently concerning the fate of the Palestinians in a Middle East settlement and the future of the West Bank. He said the answers were personally approved by President Carter.

Sherman has been the sole official spokesman for the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks that opened at Blair House last Thursday. He told reporters at a briefing this afternoon that both sides were continuing to discuss the text of a compromise peace treaty draft presented by the U.S. Thursday and repeated that “progress continues though differences do remain.”

No formal sessions were held at Blair House yesterday or today and none are scheduled for tomorrow because of the Succoth holiday. But Sherman disclosed that leaders of the Israeli and Egyptian delegations were meeting informally at their quarters in the Madison Hotel.

He said that Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, co-chairman of the Israeli delegation, and Acting Egyptian Foreign Minister Boutros Ghali met for 90 minutes this morning and then called on the head of the Egyptian delegation, Defense Minister Kamal Hassan Ali. Sherman said that some sections of the U.S. draft text have been agreed to already but would not say what they were or which sections were posing difficulties. Replying to a question, Sherman said Saunders had “no intention” of talking with Palestinian representatives when he is in Jordan.