The United States is proposing that the Palestinian members of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation be members of the Palestine National Council (PNC) who are not members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the State Department indicated today.
Secretary of State George Shultz is expected to make this proposal, among other suggestions, when he meets this weekend with the leaders of Israel, Jordan and Egypt.
However, State Department deputy spokesman Edward Djerejian would not confirm this or say whether any list of possible members of the delegation has been drawn up. He repeated his assertion that public discussion is not “appropriate” prior to Shultz’s Middle East trip which starts with his arrival in Israel tomorrow.
Djerejian said yesterday that the U.S. is considering meeting with a joint Jordanian-non-PLO Palestinian delegation, but only if this is to be a prelude for the delegation to have direct negotiations with Israel.
He indicated today that the Palestinians could be members of the PNC. He noted that the U.S. has met with members of the PNC in the past who, he pointed out, included some American citizens.
The PNC officially calls for the PLO to engage in an “armed struggle” for the destruction of Israel. Although in 1983 it passed a resolution calling for a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital, it stressed that this was only the first step in “completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory.”
U.S. CITES DIFFERENTIATION
But Djerejian stressed that the U.S. differentiates between the PNC as an organization and its individual members. He would not say how the U.S. would determine whether individual members accept U.S. conditions for meeting with the PLO — acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and Israel’s right to exist.
He noted, however, that “Israel is aware of our position on the PNC” and has been so since 1983. Israel officially does not differentiate between the PNC and the PLO and has made clear that it will never negotiate with members of the PLO.
The U.S. position is seen as aimed first at getting King Hussein of Jordan to convince PLO chief Yasir Arafat to allow non-PLO members to represent the Palestinians on the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. Arafat has insisted that only the PLO can speak for the Palestinians.
Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, apparently pressed the U.S. position during his recent visit to the Middle East with Hussein and with Palestinians he met while in Israel.
If this problem is surmounted, U.S. officials have expressed confidence in the past that Israel would not object to Palestinian delegates who come from the West Bank and Gaza although they may object to those from outside the territories.
The February II agreement between Hussein and Arafat for a joint delegation does not call for direct negotiations with Israel, upon which the U.S. insists, but for an international conference which would include the five permanent members of the Security Council. Both Israel and the U.S. are opposed to such a conference.
In addition, the U.S. has called for explicit acceptance of Resolutions 242 and 338 and has said that the Hussein-Arafat agreement which speaks of acceptance of all UN resolutions on the Middle East, many of them anti-Israel, does not meet this condition. All of these factors may become clearer after Shultz’s visit to the Middle East.
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