Shamir, Peres Clash Over Mideast Talks : Cabinet Members Say Row Is Not Likely to Splinter Coalition

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir clashed Sunday with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres at a stormy Cabinet session over an international peace conference on the Middle East.

Members of the 25-member Cabinet said, however, that they did not expect the confrontation to splinter Israel’s fragile coalition government.

Israel’s state radio reported “sharp exchanges” between the two political rivals in the weekly Cabinet meeting during which Peres’ just-concluded visit to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was discussed. Peres announced at the end of his two-day visit last week that he and Mubarak agreed to work to convene the conference by the end of the year.

During the five-hour Cabinet session, Shamir restated his opposition to a world conference, calling it a “Soviet-Arab idea,” Israel army radio said.

Shamir was quoted as saying coalition partners have reached no agreement on an international conference, and “either we act according to agreed-on policy or we separate.”

Position Unchanged

Peres told reporters after the Cabinet session that he would continue his peace efforts, despite differences in the government.

“I haven’t changed my position,” he said. “There is an argument in the Cabinet, and every argument has a certain amount of tension.”

State-run Israel radio said Shamir demanded during the meeting that Peres take back a statement suggesting that whoever opposed an international conference was “killing peace.”

Peres countered by demanding that Shamir retract statements that the conference was a Soviet trick and would reduce Israel to its pre-1967 borders.

Shamir’s right-wing Likud Bloc and Peres’ left-of-center Labor Alignment, forced into a coalition after an election stalemate in 1984, have squabbled over peacemaking strategy for three weeks.

Arab states have backed a Soviet call for an international conference on Middle East peace. It would include the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council--the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Britain and France.

Direct Talks

Peres has said such a conference could help launch direct negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

But Shamir, during a recent visit to Washington, called the idea a Soviet trick, saying it would isolate Israel and force it to make unreasonable concessions.

Officials leaving the Cabinet meeting said they did not expect the government to collapse over the issue.

However, Energy Minister Moshe Shahal of Peres’ Labor Alignment said Shamir had raised for the first time in a Cabinet meeting the possibility of ending the 28-month-old coalition government.

In an interview on state television later in the day, Shamir said Peres’ support for an international peace conference was “undermining the foundations of the national unity government.”

Peres said the government didn’t need to begin a full-fledged debate on the issue until it agreed with the Arabs on conditions for holding the conference.

Among issues yet to be resolved are the nature of a Palestinian delegation and the terms for Soviet and Chinese participation.

Peres has said Israel would accept Soviet participation only if Moscow renewed diplomatic relations with Israel and allowed Soviet Jews to emigrate. China also would have to renew ties, he said.