Negotiators are coming together in Washington and London this week to further the cause of peace in two world trouble spots, the Middle East and the Balkans.
In neither case is a breakthrough likely. But there is reason to expect the principals and the mediators to work from a fuller agenda and to feel greater pressure to achieve results than they have felt in the past.
Middle East peace talks, scheduled to resume Monday in Washington, stand to benefit from this summer`s change in government in Israel and its byproduct, better relations between the U.S. and Jerusalem.
The United States dropped opposition to loan guarantees for Israel after new Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin imposed a partial freeze on Jewish settlement activity in Israel`s occupied territories.
Now the State Department and Rabin are eager to move beyond posturing into the real hashing out of differences between Arabs and Israelis. For his part, Rabin wants an early agreement on Palestinian self-government and meaningful talks with Syria.
This poses a challenge for the Arab states and Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They must get over being miffed by the Bush administration`s shift on loan guarantees and offer substantive proposals of their own. Otherwise, they risk being labeled obstructionists.
At least the Arab side had the good sense to reject the notion, entertained briefly last week, of postponing participation in this latest phase of the peace process begun last October in Madrid. (The Palestinian delegation did delay its departure for Washington on Friday after Israeli border guards prevented a handful of delegates from crossing into Jordan from the West Bank.)
As for the London conclave, the prospect of full attendance seems its most auspicious feature. Leaders of all the relevant political entities of the former Yugoslavia accepted British Lord Carrington`s invitation to join in a three-day conference starting Wednesday. So did diplomats from the European Community, the United Nations and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Lawrence Eagleburger, acting secretary of state, will be there for the U.S. He told The New York Times the assemblage wouldn`t end the war but could lead to tighter sanctions against Serbia, identified as the main villain in the Bosnian war, and to a coordinated effort to assist 2.2 million refugees. Dividing Bosnia into ethnic cantons is expected to come up, too.
Publicity about suffering in Serb-run detention centers and in the besieged city of Sarajevo has infused would-be peacemakers with a new sense of urgency. But, perversely, it is also the Serbs` nearness to military victory that has energized the peace-seekers.
This fact ought to humble everyone trying to advance the cause of peace-humble them, yes, but not deter them. Efforts like those in Washington and London this week must go forward. The unacceptable alternative is to give in to chaos and conflict.
