Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Baker's peace hopes fading Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 15:11:15 EST Message-ID: \SE A \HD Baker's peace hopes fading \SH Too many obstacles for one final effort in Mideast \BY Martin Sieff \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES James A. Baker III's hope for a "last hurrah" in Mideast peacemaking is receding - threatened by Israeli coolness, Arab desire to test Bill Clinton and Mr. Baker's own native caution. The former secretary of state remained eager, up to the beginning of this week, to round out his career by returning to the Mideast peace process he had long brokered, administration and other sources said. The White House chief of staff, who left his State Department post in late summer to bolster the Bush campaign, was encouraged to return to the Mideast by his longtime right-hand man, Dennis Ross. Mr. Ross, who this week is returning from the White House to his old post as director of policy planning at State, is still eager for Mr. Baker to take the plunge. But now his old boss, backed by Baker adviser Margaret Tutwiler, is not so sure, the sources said. Democratic Party sources said President-elect Bill Clinton was unlikely to make any dramatic short-term moves that might commit him to policies forged by the Bush administration in its dying days. But in his first news conference since his election as president, Mr. Clinton yesterday had warm words for the record of the Bush foreign policy team. The president-elect has made clear he backs the Mideast peace process and hopes to see further progress in it - a view that could conceivably lead him to welcome a Baker shuttle mission during the next two months. On Tuesday, Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos said no one had broached the subject of dispatching Mr. Baker back to the region. But he said Mr. Clinton "is for anything that moves the process forward at this time." Since the seventh round of the year-old Arab-Israeli peace talks resumed here Monday, prospects for peace have dimmed appreciably. Terrorists in Lebanon, bent on derailing the talks, have launched rocket attacks on Israeli cities. The Israeli air force has hit back at targets in southern Lebanon. As a result, Israeli and Arab delegates here are staking out tough and ever more inflexible positions. Mr. Baker believes that the talks are likely to go nowhere at least until the Clinton administration takes over, and that they are not amenable to any negotiating push from him at this stage, administration and other sources said. Israeli response to the return of Mr. Baker was always lukewarm - at best. Earlier this week, Yossi Gal, chief Israeli spokesman for the peace talks here, said at a news conference that Mr. Baker would have nothing to contribute. In fact, although new Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin personally enjoys good relations with Mr. Baker, the Israelis are not eager to see him back, the diplomatic sources said. The Israeli government fears Mr. Baker would pressure it into making unilateral concessions in a bid to achieve a dramatic breakthrough before Mr. Clinton takes over Jan. 20. State Department sources said the possibility of Mr. Baker's return to the peace process appeared more unlikely this week but could not be ruled out. Mr. Baker has not discussed the possibility of his return as a negotiator with either Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger or with Edward Djerejian, assistant secretary of state for the Middle East. "Secretary Baker hadn't talked to anybody, to Ed Djerejian or Eagleburger about it," Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman said yesterday. "I mean, those are the people who matter in these things. I have not heard anything new from the president or from Baker." Arab leaders like and trust Mr. Baker. But with the exception of Jordan, which has moved toward negotiating with Israel on substantive issues in this round, the Arab delegations here have not given any sign of offering him any opening for a diplomatic breakthrough. Miss Tutwiler, a longtime Baker aide, has been strongly advising Mr. Baker against taking the plunge back into the talks. Mr. Ross, who always made Mideast peace his specialty at State, is nevertheless anxious to have his old boss return. "Even more than Baker, Ross wants to go out in a blaze of glory," one former Republican official said. The new round of escalating violence in Lebanon has cast its shadow over the talks here. Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces yesterday killed a U.N. peacekeeper and wounded three others in south Lebanon while Israeli troops and tanks remained massed on Israel's northern border, ready for a major reactive strike into Hezbollah-controlled territory. Hezbollah forces fired at least 10 Soviet-made Katyusha rockets at an Israeli army position on the edge of Israel's south Lebanon security zone and also used anti-tank rockets and machine guns to blast the position near the village of Rashaf. * This article is based in part on wire service reports This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM