State Dept. Contends the Plo’s Central Council Did Not Reject Reagan’s Peace Initiative

The State Department maintained today that the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council did not reject President Reagan’s Middle East peace initiative when the 60-member PLO group criticized the proposals at its meeting in Damascus last Thursday.

Instead, Department Deputy spokesman Alan Romberg said the meeting should be considered as part of the “process of consultations in the Palestinian community and also, of course, with other Arab communities.”

Romberg noted that the Reagan initiative “has stimulated serious discussion of key issues related to the peace process and we are encouraged that that discussion continues and that serious consideration continues to be given to the broadening of the peace process.” He warned, however, that there is an “urgency” on this and “we hope that the preliminaries can be concluded in the near future so that the main event, the real peace negotiations, can begin.”

But there was no sign yet that the PLO is willing to allow King Hussein of Jordan to represent the Palestinians in the peace talks as Reagan has proposed. Hussein and PLO chief Yasir Arafat reportedly embraced as they continued their talks Saturday night that were begun last August. There also were no signs that the king will be able to get approval from Arafat that the Administration would like him to have when he meets with Reagan in Washington December 21.

The PLO’s Central Council, in its statement last Thursday, attacked Reagan’s plan for Palestinian self rule because it specifically rejected a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Council claimed that the U.S. position does not “satisfy the inalienable national rights of our people.” But it did not reject the Reagan plan as unacceptable in its entirety.

Meanwhile, Romberg said that the Administration was “disappointed” Israel and Lebanon had not begun talks on the evacuation of Israeli forces from Lebanon. “Direct negotiations between these two governments are the only way” to achieve the goals Israel and Lebanon share with the U.S., Romberg said. He said these goals were “strengthening the central government of the sovereign state of Lebanon, free from the presence of foreign forces on its territory, and the establishment of a peaceful state of relationship between Israel and Lebanon.”

Romberg noted that the two special U.S. envoys in the Middle East–Philip Habib and Morris Draper–have been working with Israel and Lebanon in an effort to solve the differences between them that have been holding up the negotiations. The Israeli Cabinet yesterday dropped its insistence that the talks be held on a ministerial level but maintained that the two delegations must be led by civilians not military personnel as Lebanon wants.

But Israel also insists that the talks be held in Beirut and Jerusalem while Lebanon wants them in communities along the border. “The question of holding negotiations in Jerusalem is obviously a matter of great sensitivity to all parties concerned,” Romberg said. While Romberg did not explain what he meant by “sensitivity,” he stressed the U.S. was not taking a position on this issue. “We hope that all the remaining problems can be worked out,” he said.