King Abdullah tells U.S. Jewish leaders Syria is ready to talk with Israel

NEW YORK -- Jordan's King Abdullah told American Jewish leaders on Monday that Syria is ready to renew negotiations with Israel in the wake of the election victory of Ehud Barak. Meanwhile, in Damascus, Syria's President Hafez Assad has refused to invite Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to end their nearly 20-year-old rift.

Addressing the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Abdullah sounded an optimistic note over the future of the Middle East peace process. He said he was encouraged by the election of Barak as prime minister.

Abdullah said he believed the peace process would be resumed and this would include Syria, Jordan's northern neighbor which has agreed to a rapproachment with Amman.

"I am also optimistic of what I've seen in Syria the last several months," Abdullah said. "I believe there is a real desire to move on the peace track."

PLO Executive Council secretary Mahmoud Abbas said in a radio interview that despite the appeals of envoys and the mediation of such countries as Egypt and Jordan, Syrian Assad declined to extend the invitation to Arafat.

"We have been sending signals to Syria, especially as we will be going now to final-status talks with issues related to everyone," Abbas, known by his nomme de guerre, Abu Mazen, said. "But we have not received a positive response."

Earlier this month, Arafat sent two of his key supporters for talks in Damascus with senior Syrian officials, including Foreign Minister Farouk A-Shaara. They also held talks with members of the Syrian-supported Palestinian opposition.

Abdullah said Jordan would be involved in talks regarding the future of Jerusalem. He was vague over whether Jordan would join the Palestinian demand that final status talks on Jerusalem and other issues be based on the 1947 United Nations partition of the British mandate of Palestine.

That partition, as stipulated in UN Security Council resolution 181, calls for Jerusalem to be an international city.

On Sunday evening, Vice President Al Gore told a dinner sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that United Nations Security Council resolution 181 would not be the basis for final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. He said the basis would be UN resolutions 242 and 338 which U.S. officials describe as the "land for peace" formula.

"We urge our Palestinian friends to continue negotiations on the basis of resolutions 242 and 338, which have been the foundation of progress we have made until now,'' Gore said.

Gore said the United States would not force Israel to make any concessions that endanger its security. He said Washington would seek to bolster Israeli security in any settlement.

The vice president said the basis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be the freedom of Palestinians to live on their own land and the right of Israelis to be secure.

Although the State Department has stressed that UN resolution 242 would be the basis of future Israeli-Palestinian talks, the White House has not responded to Palestinian efforts to make the 1947 partition plan the focus of negotiations. The partition plan, issued before the Israeli war of independence in 1948, called for most of the Galilee and the Negev desert to be included in a Palestinian state.

Palestinian officials were quick to respond. PA Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman told PA radio on Monday that UN resolution 181 is the only blueprint supported by the international community on the division of the British mandate of Palestine. He said the Palestinians will not agree to shelving the resolution and said that the partition plan provides territorial contiguity for a Palestinian state.

PLO Executive Council secretary Mahmoud Abbas agreed. "You can't deny resolution 181 because this was the basis for the establishment of Israel," he said.