U.S. Says World Is Tired of Mideast Crisis, Prods Israel : Calls for Exit From Arab Areas

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saying the world is “tired” of the Mideast conflict, today urged Israel to recognize the need to withdraw from the territories it occupies and to accommodate legitimate Palestinian political rights.

The comments came in a speech by Vernon A. Walters that never explicitly mentioned the Palestine Liberation Organization or its chairman, Yasser Arafat.

The speech reiterated longstanding U.S. policy calling for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied lands in exchange for peace with its Arab neighbors.

On Tuesday, Arafat appealed for negotiations with Israel’s leaders in a speech before an extraordinary session of the U.N. General Assembly, convened in Geneva when the United States refused him a visa to speak in New York.

For the first time, the PLO leader called Israel directly by name.

Walters said there is “no substitute for direct negotiations” between the parties in the Middle East conflict and did not rule out the PLO as participant, although the United States said Tuesday that Arafat’s speech did not go far enough to warrant that.

‘The Time Has Come’

Palestinians, Walters said, “will have to commit themselves to negotiations with Israel.”

Apparently responding to Arafat’s call for an international Middle East peace conference, Walters said such a meeting “may be useful insofar as it helps launch and support direct negotiations” but cannot substitute for them.

“We must tell (the parties involved) that we are tired of this conflict and tired of their unwillingness to make fair compromises,” he said.

“We must tell them the time has come to agree that a negotiated settlement is required,” Walters said.

Walters also urged the Soviet Union and China to restore diplomatic relations with Israel.

Earlier today, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Johanan Bein, told the assembly that it is ready to meet with moderate Palestinians at any time but never with the “terrorist” PLO.

‘Rejection, Violence, Terror’

Bein said “vague phraseology” of the PLO’s declaration of statehood “cannot hide the PLO’s commitment to the common denominator that unites all its factions: the path of rejection, violence and terror.”

Therefore, Bein said, the “PLO can never be a negotiating partner” with Israel. Several members of the PLO delegation walked out during Bein’s speech.

“The killing of women and children in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is clearly condoned (by the PLO),” Bein said. “Recent declarations have not departed from extreme and uncompromising positions.”

In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today praised Arafat’s speech and disputed Washington’s view that it failed to meet U.S. requirements. “I do not know what more is required from Arafat,” Mubarak said.

The U.S. State Department said Arafat failed to recognize explicitly Israel’s right to exist, a Washington precondition for recognizing the PLO.

The U.S. State Department tried through public and private diplomacy to persuade the PLO to renounce terrorism in all forms and expand on its declaration of independence last month by explicitly recognizing Israel’s right to exist.