Three Arab nations agreed Friday to revive peace talks with Israel, and the PLO took a step toward the negotiating table after the Security Council unanimously condemned the Hebron mosque massacre.
U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright told the Security Council after the vote that Syria, Jordan and Lebanon agreed to resume negotiations with Israel in April.The PLO's representative at the United Nations, Nasser Al-Kidwa, told the council that his group would not return to the talks until international protection is provided to Palestinians.
But Albright and sources from both sides said a high-level PLOIsraeli meeting was planned within days to try to restart that negotiating track.
Israeli sources said Israeli and PLO negotiators were to meet Sunday or Monday in Cairo, Egypt, or Tunis, Tunisia, where the PLO is based. And PLO sources in Tunis reported that top Israeli negotiator Amnon Shahak would arrive there Sunday, most likely bearing new proposals to break the deadlock.
There were also reports of a possible meeting between PLO Chief Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
Before the vote, PLO official Samir Ghoshe also said the two might meet Sunday in Cairo, Egypt. On Friday, Arafat authorized Faisal Husseini, a leading PLO activist in the West Bank, to talk with Peres on a possible compromise.
The Mideast peace process was halted by the Feb. 25 massacre by a Jewish settler of 30 Arabs praying in a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron. The Palestine Liberation Organization and Arab nations had demanded that the Se-cur-ity Council condemn the massacre as a condition for returning to the talks.
The United States had tried to withhold its support of the resolution until the PLO agreed to resume the peace talks. The PLO, however, insisted the resolution be adopted first.
In Washington, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said the three Arab governments' decisions to return to the talks would provide "a strong impetus" for the PLO to do the same and conclude arrangements with Israel for Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho.
But in Tunis, PLO spokesman Yasser Abed Rabbo said there was a "real need" to provide security and safety to the Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories before the PLO could resume talks.
He called on the two co-sponsors of the Middle East peace talks, the United States and Russia, to immediately start implementing the U.N. resolution passed Friday, which calls for the protection of the Palestinians, but does not specify an armed force.
Friday's vote on a resolution came three weeks after the massacre because of wrangling over clauses regarding Jerusalem and the call for stationing "a temporary international or foreign presence" to protect Palestinians in the territories.
President Clinton was under pressure by 82 senators to order a veto of the clause calling Jerusalem an occupied territory.
In the end, Albright raised her hand to abstain, not veto, that clause, while approving the rest of the resolution. She and Christopher said later that the United States would have vetoed the clause had it not been in a preamble.
The Senate later adopted unanimously a resolution calling on the administration to block U.N. efforts to describe Jerusalem as occupied territory.
The 15 Security Council members had dusted off a procedure not used since 1985 to take separate votes on each paragraph of the resolution.
The United States and Israel have objected to calling Jerusalem an occupied territory because they want the issue of the city settled in peace talks. Jordan controlled East Jerusalem until 1967, when Israel took it during a war and then annexed it.
The United States also abstained on a paragraph referring to land occupied by Israel as "occupied Palestinian territory." Albright said that could mean sovereignty, an issue to be decided in negotiations.
Despite their differences, all 15 council members approved the clause on protecting the Palestinians - the PLO's major sore point following the massacre.
The United States and Israel, not a Security Council member, are willing to accept an unarmed civilian force, but only in parts of the occupied territories to come under Palestinian autonomy according to the Sept. 13 Israel-PLO accord.
The PLO wants much more, such as an armed international force to protect Palestinians and removal of Jewish settlements from Palestinian population centers.
Christopher said only that Israeli and PLO officials will meet "quite soon" to take up security measures on the West Bank.