ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991                   TAG: 9104110468
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: CAIRO, EGYPT                                LENGTH: Medium

EGYPT OPEN TO BAKER'S PEACE PLAN

Egypt gave general approval Wednesday to a U.S.-sponsored proposal for a Middle East peace conference between Israel, the Arab countries and Palestinians, but both American and Egyptian officials warned that all sides remain far apart on some fundamental issues.

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak told Secretary of State James Baker that he would cooperate in efforts to arrange the meeting, which Israel endorsed Tuesday. But Mubarak's idea of the conference was sharply different than Israel's, highlighting the problems Baker faces as he tries to get the region's warring parties to sit down at a single peace table.

The proposed conference, which is intended to launch direct talks between Israel and the Arabs, has become the centerpiece of the Bush administration's Middle East peace initiative and has touched off a contest among the region's statesmen to see who can be most effusive in praising it without giving ground on issues of substance.

"We certainly appreciate the efforts that are deployed by the United States, by President Bush, by Secretary Baker in trying to reach a peaceful solution," Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abbel Meguid said.

But Baker seemed to take little comfort in his host's gracious but non-committal words. "[On] some things . . . there would appear to be some congruence of opinion between the United States and other countries," Baker said. "The problems that we are addressing are extremely difficult, they are intractable, they are of very long standing."

U.S. officials noted that only six hours before meeting with Baker, the Egyptian foreign minister had taken a much tougher line in a news conference with Arab and foreign journalists.

"There can be no peace as long as Israel is occupying Arab land," Meguid said then.

And only a few hours before that, Egypt's semiofficial newspaper Al Ahram, which usually mirrors government thinking, reported that Mubarak plans to pose a series of demands in any peace process - all of which conflicts with Israeli positions.

According to Al Ahram, Mubarak believes that any peace conference should lead to a larger international negotiation; Israel says that it should lead to smaller, one-to-one talks. Mubarak wants Israel to give up Arab-populated territory in exchange for peace; Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has steadfastly rejected that kind of deal. And Mubarak insists that Israel must stop expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip; Israel has refused to take that step, although the United States has pressed the issue for years.

The differences between Egypt and Israel, Al Ahram warned in an editorial, "are not over details or perception. They are over principles and basics." 


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