TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081291/0812104.000

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                                                                                NATION, Page 24

MOSCOW SUMMIT

Tag-Team Diplomacy


Bush helps Gorbachev in the Ukraine, and the Soviet leader returns
the favor on the Middle East

By MICHAEL S. SERRILL -- Reported by Michael Duffy with Bush,
J.F.O. McAllister/Washington and Robert Slater/ Jerusalem


    Last week's Moscow summit had been billed as the final
act of the cold war. But within hours after Air Force One
touched down at Sheremetyevo Airport, it was clear that the last
vestiges of East-West tension had dissolved long before George
Bush's arrival. In what both sides agreed was the friendliest
U.S.-Soviet summit ever, Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev laughed and
joked their way through the signing of the Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty (START), which will reduce the two superpowers'
nuclear arsenals, and a series of other agreements covering
everything from agriculture to the arts. Bush agreed to try to
provide Moscow with additional economic and technical aid. He
also did his part to keep Gorbachev's restive empire from flying
apart by traveling to Kiev to warn the Ukrainian legislature
against any adventures in "suicidal nationalism."

    As the Bush motorcade arrived in Kiev, the streets were
crowded with nationalist spectators, many of them waving the
blue-and-yellow flag of the once independent Ukrainian state.
But he made it clear that the U.S. would not intervene in the
disputes between the republics and Gorbachev's central
government. "We will not try to pick winners and losers in
political competitions between republics, or between republics
and the center," said the President. "((That)) is your business,
not the business of the U.S."

    But Bush's comments on Soviet internal politics were
overshadowed by the hope that the new spirit of U.S.-Soviet
cooperation might spread to the Middle East. Secretary of State
James Baker, with some important help from Moscow, persuaded
Israel to sit down with its Arab neighbors in face-to-face peace
talks that could begin in October. Bush hailed the coming peace
conference as a "historic opportunity" for a comprehensive
Arab-Israeli settlement after 43 years of war and confrontation.

    Bush and Baker traveled to Moscow with every intention of
bringing Israel to the table. Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria
had already accepted Israel's long-standing demand for bilateral
talks. But Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had one last
concern: the composition of the Palestinian delegation to the
meetings. Israel rejects any participation in the talks by
Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. It also
opposes the inclusion of any resident of East Jerusalem, a step
that in Shamir's view might imply that the city's status as
Israel's capital is open to negotiation.

    To overcome Shamir's qualms, Bush and Gorbachev staged a
diplomatic squeeze play. Baker holed up in Moscow and spent
hours on the telephone trying to bring Shamir around. When Bush
and Gorbachev announced on Wednesday -- before any public
announcement from Shamir -- that they would issue invitations
to an October peace conference, it seemed like a classic bit of
diplomatic arm twisting directed at the recalcitrant Israelis.
Bush said he was sending Baker to Jerusalem immediately "to
obtain Israel's reply."

    In fact, according to a senior Administration official,
the announcement was a diplomatic charade: Shamir had agreed to
attend the peace conference before Baker left Moscow. The
Israeli leader's acquiescence was prompted in part by a Soviet
promise to re-establish diplomatic relations, which were severed
in 1967, if the talks get under way. Baker also assured him
that the U.S. would not insist that Palestinians unacceptable
to Shamir be included in the discussions.

    But even after Shamir agreed to take part in the talks, he
insisted that Baker travel to Israel to get the word. That was
another example of what some diplomats see as the one-upmanship
that the two men have been engaging in since the Bush
Administration began reviving the peace process in March. Upon
arriving in Jerusalem, the Secretary spent 90 minutes huddled
with Shamir before they announced at a joint press conference
that Arab-Israeli talks would indeed convene. Peace in the
Middle East, said Baker, was "no longer simply a dream."

    In a considerable understatement, Baker added that there
was "some work" to be done to secure the cooperation of the
Palestinians, who still insist that they will choose their own
delegation without interference and that a representative of
East Jerusalem must be included. With all the major Arab states,
plus the Soviet Union and other European nations, ready to talk
peace, the Palestinians may have no choice but to acquiesce to
Shamir's formulation. Jordan's King Hussein has appealed to the
P.L.O. not to raise problems over Palestinian representation.
And Egyptian Foreign Minister Amre Moussa is seeking a possible
compromise: Arab residents of East Jerusalem would be excluded
from the first round of negotiations but included at a later
stage.

    For Shamir, the agreement to attend the conference
required only a slight shift in emphasis: he simply said yes,
Israel would sit down at the peace parley provided the
Palestinian delegation was acceptable, rather than no, it would
not attend if the Palestinian group was not acceptable. Beyond
that, the stone-faced Prime Minister gave away little. At
meetings with his right-wing supporters, Shamir emphasized that
he had not agreed to sacrifice -- or even discuss -- the status
of Jerusalem and that there was no requirement for Israel to
halt construction of new settlements in the territories or lift
the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israeli
troops. "Trust me," Shamir told a gathering of Knesset members
from the small rightist parties that hold his ruling Likud
coalition together. "We won't withdraw one millimeter."

    U.S., Soviet and other organizers of the peace conference
hope the negotiating process may serve to soften Shamir's
intransigence. Their strategy is to coax the old enemies toward
agreement on less contentious issues in the hope that the result
will be a climate of trust that enables prog ress on more
explosive issues. "You want to give this process time so that
thinking can evolve," says a senior Administration official.
"Different kinds of compromises become possible over time
because people see things in different ways."

    The meetings will begin with a plenary session at which
the U.S. and the Soviet Union will be co-hosts. The site has
not been decided, but Washington, Geneva and Cairo have been
mentioned as possibilities. Present will be Egypt, Israel,
Lebanon, Syria and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. The
European Community will participate, and the Gulf Cooperation
Council, representing Saudi Arabia and other gulf states, will
send an observer, as will the United Nations.

    After two days of opening ceremonies, the talks will break
up into bilateral groups: Israeli-Syrian talks on the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights; Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian
discussions on the future of the West Bank and Gaza;
Israeli-Lebanese negotiations over Israel's "security zone"
along their common border. Simultaneously, multilateral working
groups will tackle less contentious regional problems such as
water, the environment and arms control.

    Given the extraordinary lineup of forces favoring the
conference, it is likely that the remaining roadblocks to the
talks will be knocked down. Whether the negotiators will be able
to find any common ground once they sit down together is another
matter. "Don't be surprised if the photo opportunity passes, and
then the bilateral negotiations bog down very quickly," warns
William Quandt, a Middle East expert at the Brookings
Institution.

    Gorbachev's and Bush's tag-team diplomacy on the Middle
East was just one consequence of what the Soviet leader
described as a warm "feeling of solidarity" that has developed
between the two men. Bush responded to Gorbachev's many
compliments by toasting him as "a man I respect and admire" and
by promising to seek most-favored-nation trading status for the
Soviet Union. He even chided reporters for blaming the Soviet
government "before you know what happened" in last week's
killing of seven guards at a Lithuanian customs house

    Gorbachev suggested that with START out of the way the
superpowers were in a position to tackle other sources of
international tension, like Yugoslavia and Central America.
Certainly the agreement to hold talks in the Middle East was
proof of the promise that East-West collaboration holds out to
the world. Until Bush and Gorbachev teamed up, the two sides had
so little to say to each other that they could not even agree
to talk.