Time for progress is short — Thatcher

Press, 20 September 1985, Page 6

Time for progress is short — Thatcher

NZPA-Reuter Amman, Jordan The British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, is holding talks with King Hussein of Jordan after giving a warning that time is running out for his Middle East peace proposal. Mrs Thatcher told a banquet in her honour shortly after she arrived from Egypt that progress on the effort, based on an accord reached on February 11 with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, had to get under way by the end of this year. “We in Britain are ready — and I hope others will be

ready — to use that very short period to create the right circumstances for peaceful negotiations,” she said. A final settlement of the Middle East conflict had to take into account the legitimate rights of all the peoples and States in the area, including Palestinians, she said. Mrs Thatcher was to visit today the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, the Baqa’ camp, between Jordan’s capital, Amman, and the town of Jarash. King Hussein told the banquet, in honour of the

first visit to Jordan by a British Prime Minister, that Britain and Western Europe could help end the “hesitation of some countries” over participation in the peace process. There is controversy in Washington over proposed arms sales to Jordan, but British officials said that Mrs Thatcher was due to sign a memorandum on a British arms deal with Jordan. British press reports had indicated that the memorandum entailed a £270 million ($691 million) buy of high technology weaponry.