Christopher Makes a Surprise Visit to Lebanon : Mideast: Trip symbolizes support for Beirut and secures its backing for the resumption of peace talks.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher made a surprise, high-security visit to Lebanon’s war-racked capital on Monday, making a symbolic show of American support for the divided country’s independence and winning its government’s support for his effort to resume Middle East peace talks.

It was the first visit to Beirut by an American secretary of state in almost nine years. That his tour went off without a hitch, Christopher said, could influence the Clinton Administration toward lifting restrictions on U.S. citizens’ travel to Lebanon; the restrictions were imposed after a rash of kidnapings and hijackings in the 1980s.

Nevertheless, on Monday afternoon, before they climbed into three Blackhawk helicopters from the U.S. Embassy fleet for the 50-minute ride to Beirut from Larnaca Airport in Cyprus, Christopher’s aides were visibly edgy about the trip.

The helicopters skimmed low and fast over the Mediterranean to Beirut’s busy harbor, then banked hard several times in a looping route over the city itself.

Christopher and his aides, wearing orange life-vests and peering out the windows, could clearly see the devastation of downtown Beirut and the hulks of armored vehicles left from Lebanon’s 14-year civil war.

They landed inside a cordon of some 500 Lebanese troops ringing the Defense Ministry in the Christian suburb of Yarze, as army sharpshooters stood watch on the rooftops of the suburb’s houses.

“My visit to Beirut . . . symbolizes our commitment and support for the Lebanese government,” Christopher told Lebanese President Elias Hrawi inside the fortified concrete building. “The United States has always had a special relationship with Lebanon and a special feeling for the people of Lebanon.”

Hrawi and his aides hailed the visit as a sign, however tenuous, that the country is returning to internationally recognized normalcy under its new, pro-U.S. prime minister, businessman Rafik Hariri. They said they hope Christopher’s presence means the end of an era in which the name Beirut summoned only thoughts of terrorism, kidnaping and the ill-fated U.S. Marine deployment of 1982.

After delivering a welcoming statement in Arabic, and just before turning over the microphone to Christopher, Hrawi turned to the secretary of state and ad-libbed fervently in English, “Welcome in Beirut--anytime you want.”

On substantive issues, Christopher said the Administration is willing to discuss resuming limited military aid to the Lebanese army, including both training and access to excess American equipment. At the same time, he said, the United States wants to see the 35,000 Syrian forces that now occupy most of Lebanon withdraw to the eastern Bekaa Valley “at the earliest date.”

In response, Lebanese Foreign Minister Faris Bouez gave Christopher what he was looking for: Lebanon’s agreement to resume peace talks with Israel if a compromise solution can be reached over the issue of 396 alleged Palestinian militants deported by Israel.

The Lebanese government’s assent meant that all the Arab participants in the negotiations except the Palestinians have now endorsed Christopher’s drive to restart the stalled talks.

“I was very pleased by their support for resumption of the peace process,” Christopher said. “That’s the same reaction I’ve had in all the other Arab capitals.”

Christopher later flew on to Israel, where he must tackle what an aide called “the hard part”: persuading Israel to speed up the return of Arab deportees from Lebanon; persuading the Palestinians to come back to peace talks before all the deportees return, and persuading both sides to negotiate constructively with each other.

Christopher aides said they chose the site of his meeting in Beirut specifically to send a signal that the Administration hopes to do more to promote Lebanon’s independence. His predecessor as secretary of state, James A. Baker III, made a brief visit to Lebanon by road last July, but that was in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley.

Under a 1989 agreement among Lebanon, Syria and other Arab states, Syria was supposed to allow Lebanon to develop its own, reformed political system and to withdraw its troops to the Bekaa Valley by September, 1992. But when the deadline arrived, Syria said Lebanon needed to enact wide-ranging constitutional reforms first, before it would withdraw the troops.

The United States disagrees with that position, and Christopher said he told Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus on Saturday that he wanted to see the withdrawal occur “as soon as possible.”

Senior U.S. officials, however, indicated that Christopher did not demand an immediate Syrian pullout, and they acknowledged that they would be happy with a gradual withdrawal, despite the passing of the official deadline.

“But the Lebanese aren’t pushing very hard,” one U.S. official said, noting that recent Lebanese governments have been careful not to offend their much more powerful neighbor.

Hariri and his aides appear to consider the U.S. ban on travel to Lebanon as a more worrisome immediate issue--or at least a more solvable one. The government views the ban as a serious obstacle to the newly elected government’s ambitious reconstruction plan, which includes projects ranging from a new national telecommunications system to massive urban renewal in Beirut.

Asked one Lebanese: “If he can come, why can’t the ban be lifted?”

Christopher landed in Lebanon after beginning the day in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia. He made a quick flight to Kuwait to assure the emirate’s ruling Sabah family that the United States will continue to defend them against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

And he met briefly with top officials on Cyprus, mostly to thank them for allowing him to use their island as a staging post on his way to Beirut.

Raschka reported from Beirut and McManus reported from Jerusalem and Larnaca, Cyprus. Times staff writer Mark Fineman, in Nicosia, Cyprus, also contributed to this report.