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WORLD & NATION
9
Tuesday, September 19,1989
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Israel tentatively accepts dialogue
abin agrees to hold Egyptian-sponsored talks with Palestinians
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Israel’s de-
ense minister told President Hosni
ubarak Monday that Israel would
accept an Egyptian-sponsored dia-
ogue with Palestinians, but the two
eaders disagreed on the composi-
ion of the Arab delegation.
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin
and Mubarak aired their dis
agreement publicly after meeting in
^airo for more than three hours.
At a news conference, Rabin said
Israel advocated negotiations only
|[M with Palestinians from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, occupied by Is
rael since 1967. At a separate news
conference, Mubarak insisted that
Palestinians from outside the territo
ries be included as well.
But both leaders voiced cautious
optimism about the current Israeli-
Egyptian exchanges on a scenario
for overall settlement of the Palestin
ian problem, which has kept the
Middle East in turmoil for four de
cades.
They said their two countries will
have further high-level talks.
Rabin, a senior member of Israel’s
center-left Labor Party, flew in for a
it;
Mrji
r ed
Bush answers questions
on China, Soviet Union
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Presi-
h Ident Bush defended the slow pace of
arms negotiations with the Soviet
Union on Monday, and said “it’s not
time for normalcy” in relations with
China, despite a gradual increase in
contacts since last summer’s bloody
crackdown on student dissent in
Beijing. _
In a wide-ranging session with re
porters in the ornate Senate cham
ber of the Montana legislature. Bush
said reforms in Hungary had made
it possible to extend new economic
privileges to the Communist nation.
The president was emphasizing
invironmental issues in a three-state
wing to South Dakota, Montana
vesa and Washington, defending his deci-
resuE^ion not to travel to Alaska to view
e oil spill damage in Prince Wil
iam Sound.
He said he was hopeful that “win-
er will be kind” in restoring envi-
onmental conditions in Alaskan wa-
ers. He said he’d sent his
‘environmental vice president” to
inspect the clean-up efforts and pre
dicted that Exxon would “come
)ack” next spring if further clean-up
ivas necessary.
The president also vowed to fight
on the floor of the Democratic-con-
trolled House to win passage of his
plan for a cut in the capital gains tax,
and said his plan is “not as my critics
say, a tax that will help the rich.”
Asked why there hadn’t been
more progress on a strategic arms
agreement, Bush said he had put
more early emphasis on conventio
nal arms. Soviet foreign minister Ed
uard Shevardnadze has been critical
of the Bush administration for not
advancing any major proposal on
long-range arms.
He acknowledged rumors that
Schevardnadze would bring a new
arms proposal to the United States
during meetings later this week, but
said, “I don’t know what he’s going
to bring. We haven’t had that con
firmed.”
He added, “I feel under no rush
on the subject. I think our handling
of the Soviet account is pretty good.”
“These are not easy problems,’
Bush said, mentioning verification
issues as among the thorniest to a so-
called START pact limiting long-
range ballistic missiles. At the same
time, he said, “don’t see any insur
mountable stumbling blocks there.”
seven-hour stay and was driven di
rectly to Mubarak’s office. The two
met alone for 2Vs hours, then called
in aides.
Both said they expected Israel to
present its final position on Muba
rak’s two-pronged peace proposal
next month.
One segment of Mubarak’s plan
calls for a preliminary Israeli-Pales-
tinian dialogue in Cairo to discuss a
Palestinian election plan advanced
by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir.
According to Shamir’s plan, Pales
tinians in the West Bank and Gaza
would vote to choose delegates to ne
gotiate with Israel on interim auton
omy.
Mubarak also has presented a 10-
point memorandum, which basically
attaches conditions to Shamir’s plan
that would make it acceptable to the
Palestinians.
Points of that document include
Israel’s acceptance of the principle
of trading land for Deace. and giving
. the vote to Palestinians in Israeli-an
nexed East Jerusalem.
Those points have split Israel’s co
alition government. Both ideas are
anathema to Shamir’s right-wing Li
kud bloc but are accepted by the La
bor Party headed by Finance Min
ister Shimon Peres, who says they
are a way to get the peace process
moving.
Israel radio quoted Shamir on as
saying Monday that if Labor sticks to
its support of Mubarak’s initiative,
“It will lead to a break in the govern
ment.”
Rabin’s visit was sanctioned by Is
rael’s Cabinet, and Mubarak em
phasized he believed that Rabin was
acting as a representative of his gov
ernment — not merely a Labor poli
tician.
Israeli newspapers quoted Shamir
as saying any deviation by Rabin
from the Israeli peace plan would be
“only an expression of personal
opinion.”
Yeltsin was drunk
on recent U.S. tour,
says Pravda article
MOSCOW (AP) — Opposition
legislator Boris N. Yeltsin shop
ped and drank until he dropped
on his tour of the United States,
said a scathing article reprinted
Monday in the Communist Party
newspaper Pravda.
The Communist Party maver
ick “leaves behind him a wake of
catastrophic prophecies, insane
expenses, interviews and above
all the perfume of Jack Daniels
Black label,” the Italian newspa
per La Repubblica said in an arti
cle translated into Russian and
printed in full by Pravda.
Pravda did not comment on
the article. But it gave its readers
a taste of the page 5 piece in a
front-page box quoting the article
as saying Yeltsin found the
United States “a holiday, a stage,
a bar 5,000 kilometers long.”
Yeltsin, who arrived back in
Moscow late Monday evening,
denied the report.
“It’s garbage,” Yeltsin told the
Associated Press, flushing with
anger.
“It’s a simple lie, slander, and
revenge for the fact that Ameri
cans received us with admira
tion,” he said before slipping into
a black Volga car to be whisked
into Moscow.
The article is potentially very-
damaging to the silver-haired, 58-
year-old populist who has become
a hero to many Soviets by criticiz
ing special privileges for party
and government officials and
urging that President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev speed up his reforms.
It raises the question of the
character of a leading politician
more clearly than has been done
in decades.
Ethnic problems fill Communist docket
MOSCOW (AP) — Communist Party leaders
converged on Moscow Monday for a Central
Committee meeting on the ethnic problems that
have left more than 200 people dead, one repub
lic virtually blockaded and mass movements call
ing for secession.
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev first
promised the special session — which begins
Tuesday — 18 months ago, after 31 people were
killed in Armenian-Azerbaijani rioting in the re
public of Azerbaijan in February 1988.
Since then, ethnic tension in this country of
more than 100 nationalities has worsened. Vio
lence has broken out in Armenia, Georgia, Uzbe
kistan and Kazakhstan in addition to Azerbaijan.
The ethnic problems have combined with severe
shortages of consumer goods, food rationing and
unsettling political changes — all threatening
Gorbachev’s program of perestroika, or eco
nomic and social restructuring.
Gorbachev said last week on national television
that discordant voices are speculating openly
about the possibility of a coup, imminent chaos,
and even civil war.
The Central Committee meeting will have to
deal with a range of problems.
They include the following:
• Armenians say their republic is being stran
gled by an economic blockade launched by
neighboring Azerbaijan, which controls the key
rail and highway access.
• Millions of Baltic residents have signed doc
uments favoring independence for Estonia, Lith
uania and Latvia.
• One hundred ten enterprises with mostly
Russian workers are on strike in Soviet Moldavia
over a law making Moldavian the official lan
guage of the republic.
The death toll of around 200 in the ethnic un
rest includes 100 killed in rioting in the Fergana
Valley of Uzbekistan in June and more than 100
killed in violence between Armenians and Azer
baijanis since February.
Out of this unrest, the Communist Party says it
hopes to create a situation where all Soviet citi
zens can “feel at home in any part of the coun
ty-”
A draft ethnic policy published for discussion
last month calls for restructuring the Soviet
Union as a federation of republics with broader
autonomous powers and even suggests that the
agreement that created the union in 1922 could
be rewritten.
It blames the ethnic tension on disputes dating
back centuries, aggravated by dictator Josef Sta
lin’s mass reprisals and “resettlement” of whole
peoples, including the Crimean Tatars, Meskhe-
tian Turks, Germans, Koreans, Greeks, Kurds,
Kalmyks, Karachayevs, Balkarians, Chechen and
Inkgush.
It offers the republics the power to question
national laws before a strengthened high court
and the right to use and distribute their national
resources.
\^G Tbi(j
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