CHRISTOPHER SAYS U.S. MAY HAVE TO ADAPT TO NETANYAHU'S STANCE.

Byline: Associated Press 

The U.S. strategy for peace in the Middle East may have to be adjusted to accommodate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's views, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Friday.

Still, he said, its basis remains that Israel should swap land on all fronts for Arab recognition.

``The goal won't change, but the route to those goals will have to reflect his plans,'' Christopher said in an interview as he prepared for talks in Jerusalem on Tuesday with Netanyahu.

It will be their first face-to-face exchange since the tough-minded Likud leader narrowly defeated dovish Prime Minister Shimon Peres in a May 29 election. Netanyahu offered this week unconditional negotiations with the Arabs but also has declared he will neither relinquish a strategic border plateau in exchange for a peace treaty with Syria nor agree to establishment of a state for the Palestinians.

On Friday, Christopher's spokesman urged Netanyahu to order Israeli security forces in the West Bank town of Hebron to withdraw to the town's Jewish sector, as Israel promised in September that it would do.

``We believe that Israel obviously should carry out, on Hebron and on other issues, the international commitment that it has made,'' spokesman Nicholas Burns said.

Hebron, with an overwhelmingly Arab population, is sacred to Jews and Muslims. Orthodox Jews, who voted overwhelmingly for Netanyahu, do not want the town taken over by a Palestinian government.

Christopher, eager to ``understand how he intends to approach the matter'' of widening the circle of peace in the area, told the Associated Press: ``Our policy of land-for-peace has not changed. But I want to give him a full opportunity to indicate what his approach is.''

Again, Christopher said the U.S. goal is to ``find the most effective way to achieve the goals that we've established in the past.''

The two-day trip, which includes a brief stop in Cairo for a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, was arranged to set the stage for Netanyahu coming to the White House next month for talks with President Clinton.

In the meantime, 19 Arab nations are holding their first summit meeting in six years in the Egyptian capital. The Arab leaders are expected to push Israel to resume its withdrawal from territory it soldiers captured in the 1967 and 1973 Middle East wars.

Among measures under consideration is suspending economic cooperation with Israel unless progress is evident in peace talks.

Christopher said he hopes the Arab summit will place no obstacles in the path of negotiations but said the United States has no assurances about the summit's outcome.

``We hope they will not close doors, that they will not try to set preconditions,'' Christopher said. ``But it's a meeting that will have its own destiny.''