Shultz’s Mideast Proposal Unworkable, Jordan Says

AMMAN, Jordan — Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s Middle East peace plan is unworkable in its current form, and the U.S. position will have to “evolve considerably” before any real progress can be made, according to senior Jordanian officials.

Jordan, the officials added, is seeking a number of “clarifications” of the plan from the United States before Shultz returns to the region next month.

But even as the June 3 to June 8 dates for the secretary’s next Middle East tour were announced in Washington, Jordan was preparing itself for what the officials expect will ultimately be the collapse of the Shultz initiative.

These officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they are resigned to the belief that the next serious effort to break the Mideast stalemate will have to await the outcome of the U.S. and Israeli elections in November.

The Shultz plan, conceived in response to the Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, calls for the convening of an international peace conference, a transitional period of Palestinian self-rule and bilateral Arab-Israeli negotiations to decide the “final status” of the occupied territories within a specific time frame.

Jordanian Role Key

The Jordanian role is pivotal to this plan because any Palestinian entity emerging on the West Bank would, in the U.S. view, have to be confederated in some way with Jordan.

Although Jordan is constrained by its Arab commitments from advocating anything less than the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, one senior official conceded privately that such an entity would not be geographically viable and would have to be linked with Jordan if only “to have a lung to breathe with.”

However, while they agree privately with Shultz on this point, the officials said serious differences remain over other aspects of the plan, including the function of the international conference and the role the Soviet Union would play in the peace process.

The officials added that they see little chance of a compromise being struck during Shultz’s next visit because, while the Arabs see the plan as offering too little, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has already rejected it for demanding far too much. The Israeli government, meanwhile, is paralyzed by its Likud Bloc-Labor Alignment division and is seen here as being unable to negotiate at all until its political stalemate is broken.

King Hussein, speaking to foreign journalists invited to Amman to dine with him Saturday night, struck a pessimistic note by despairing over the lack of progress toward a peace settlement.

“If there is no solution, and soon, we will be headed for a real disaster,” the king said.

Yet “the lack of progress so far suggests that the obstacles (to a settlement) are too great and too numerous” to be overcome in the foreseeable future, he conceded.

A senior Jordanian official said one of the principal obstacles still to be overcome concerns the international conference that would be sponsored by the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

Shamir staunchly opposes peace talks within an international forum, fearing it will create pressure on Israel for territorial concessions that he is unwilling to make.

But Jordan still insists on the international conference--and on a Soviet role in it--as the only way of bringing Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization into the peace process.

To bridge this gap, the Shultz plan proposes a ceremonial conference to provide an umbrella of legitimacy that would open and fold very quickly before proceeding to the direct bilateral talks favored by Israel.

But, while not rejecting the concept of concurrent bilateral negotiations, the senior Jordanian official said that the international conference would have to have a more meaningful and continuing role in the peace process to be acceptable to Jordan and the other Arabs.

Under the American plan, he said, the international forum would be “just a photo opportunity.”

Another senior official noted that Syria and the PLO were unlikely to join the peace process unless America’s participation was balanced by that of the Soviet Union.

Asserting that the Soviet position toward the Middle East has evolved to the point where it can be relied upon to play a constructive role at an international conference, he said that Moscow’s participation would also make it easier for PLO moderates to join the peace process.

Hussein said--and in private, Jordanian officials were equally adamant--that the PLO must represent itself at any peace conference, although they added it could attend as part of a joint delegation with Jordan.

“We are prepared to attend separately or as part of a joint delegation. Either way, we are flexible,” Hussein said. “But we insist on PLO representation at the conference.”

Diplomatic sources said the king’s position on this issue was likely to make things more difficult for Shultz because of the U.S. refusal to talk to the PLO until it accepts two key U.N. resolutions recognizing Israel’s right to exist.