Syria Affirms Commitment to Talks, Vents Bitterness : Mideast: Baker says the meeting is on course. But the Syrians will boycott the last phase and won’t shake hands with Israelis.

DAMASCUS, Syria —  The Syrians reaffirmed their commitment to attend a Mideast peace conference Wednesday, but Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh dramatized the depth of hostility that the talks must overcome when he said he will refuse to shake the “guilty” hands of Israeli delegates.

Shareh said Syria is satisfied with U.S.-proposed procedures for a ceremonial opening session and the face-to-face talks to follow with Israel.

But he said that Damascus will balk at attending proposed multinational negotiations over regional issues such as arms control and water until Israel withdraws from the occupied Golan Heights. He added that Syria will urge other Arab nations, such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia--which have agreed to participate in these multinational talks--to pull out.

Although Secretary of State James A. Baker III said that accords reached in 12 1/2 hours of talks with Syrian President Hafez Assad mean “we are still on course to hold a peace conference in the month of October,” the tone of Syria’s response will make it more difficult for Israel to take part.

Baker left Damascus immediately after a news conference with Shareh and flew to Jerusalem, where he is scheduled for crucial talks today with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in an effort to turn Israel’s conditional conference approval into a firm commitment to attend.

Baker met Wednesday night in Jerusalem with Palestinian leaders. But their three-hour discussion failed to resolve the pivotal problem of just who would represent the Palestinians at the talks. Baker is expected to meet with the Palestinians again today.

Syria’s hostility strengthens the hand of Israel politicians to Shamir’s right--such as Housing Minister Ariel Sharon--who believe Israel should refuse to attend the conference. It clearly increases the political price that Shamir must pay if he goes along with the U.S. initiative.

Asked in an interview with Israel Radio if Israel might pull out as a result of Syria’s refusal to participate in the regional talks, Shamir said, “Anything is possible.”

“It does make a difference; it proves something,” he said. “But I’ll give my response after I hear the report from Secretary Baker.”

Israelis have maintained for weeks that the nation is not interested in attending a conference limited to the land-for-peace issue. “If it’s just that and nothing else, then we have to think it over,” a senior government official said.

Baker was greeted in Jerusalem with a boisterous anti-U.S. protest by about 300 Israeli settlers from the West Bank. As his motorcade pulled up to the building where Baker met the Palestinians, protesters shouted for Baker to “Go home!”

The government-backed settler movement has been angered by President Bush’s threat to link increased U.S. aid for Israel to a halt in the Jewish settlement program in the occupied territories.

The United States and its co-sponsor, the Soviet Union, envision a three-stage Mideast conference. It would begin with a ceremonial opening, followed by bilateral talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors--Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. The one-on-one talks would be designed to produce formal peace treaties between Israel and its neighbors, presumably in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights.

In the third phase, the parties to the bilateral talks would be joined by Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council to discuss issues such as arms control and cooperative programs on water, economic development and other matters of regional interest.

Baker proposed the third phase to make the conference more attractive to Israel, which was reluctant to discuss the return of territory occupied during the 1967 Middle East War without getting a “true peace” that would include regional cooperation, besides a formal peace treaty.

Shareh said Syria believes the multinational talks should be postponed until the one-on-one negotiations produce a peace agreement that returns occupied territories to Arab control. “Certainly, we would like our Arab land to be restored (to) us,” he said. “This is the objective of the peace process. We want to test the Israeli intentions in the peace conference.”

Baker played down the dispute as only a difference over timing. “There has never been an understanding with respect to exactly what the timing would be,” he said. But other governments involved in the process, including Israel, have said the United States wants to begin the regional talks within two weeks of the opening of the conference.

Shareh urged all other Arab governments to join the Syrian boycott of the third phase. “We hope that our Arab brothers . . . would participate only after tangible results (are realized) from the peace conference,” he said.

A senior State Department official said later that Washington does not believe Syria will succeed in persuading other Arab states to stay away. The official said the Syrians have already made their position known to other Arab states without winning converts. Still, the Syrian demand raises the possibility of a dispute among Arab participants, further complicating an already tangled process.

Despite Syria’s refusal to attend the third-phase talks, Shareh said Damascus has no reservations about the first two phases. “We are going to that peace conference to regain our Arab lands and establish a genuine peace in the region,” he said.

Although a State Department official later said Shareh’s stated reluctance to shake Israeli hands is only “symbolism, (and) what is importance is substance,” the incident dramatizes a key defect in Baker’s planning for the conference. For months, U.S. officials have been saying that if Israel and its Arab adversaries can be brought to a conference table, the interchange would begin to soften bitter animosities. But Shareh seemed to demolish that hope.

When a reporter asked the Syrian foreign minister if, at the conference’s start, he would shake hands with Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy, Shareh first tried to dodge the issue. When pressed, he replied: “I tell you frankly, no. This hand that you would like me to shake is very guilty because it occupies our land and ignores Palestinian rights.”

A State Department official described the talks with Assad as some of the most difficult in Baker’s long career as a negotiator and deal-maker. Baker still insisted that he is satisfied with the outcome.

“I think we have made the progress that I thought was necessary when I arrived in Damascus yesterday,” he said. “President Assad reiterated his intention to participate.”

The Palestinians, speaking in vague terms, expressed satisfaction with their meeting with Baker. They went in to argue for an unfettered right to choose their delegates. They want a clear role for the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Israel opposes.