Middle East peace talks opened in Moscow today without a Palestinian delegation.
Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d read a prepared opening speech and made no mention of the Palestinians' refusal to attend.
The leader of the Palestinian delegation, Faisal al-Husseini, told reporters: "We decided not to go because the Americans did not accept our formula."
The Palestinian formula included having people from Jerusalem and from outside the Israeli-occupied territories in their negotiating team, which would have been a change in the ground rules set before peace talks began last October. Jordan's Role Disputed
Israel has insisted that it would talk only to Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, ruling out delegates from Arab East Jerusalem and repesentatives of Palestinians in exile.
Arab sources said Jordan was also locked in a dispute with the Russians over the number of seats allocated to them.
The Russian hosts offered four seats, the sources said. The Jordanians said they wanted eight, like every other delegation.
Reporters at the conference hall later saw three delegates sitting at seats allocated to the Jordanians.
Most of the other Arab delegations which accepted invitations to the two-day conference appeared to be in the hall.
Yazid al-Sayegh, one of a nine-member Palestinian team which arrived in Moscow on Monday, said: outside his hotel: "All the Americans were willing to do was make vague futuristic nice noises, nothing substantial at all."
He said the Palestinians had no special formula, adding that they just presented a list of names and never received their accreditation badges allowing them to join the conference.
Only three members of the group were reported to be acceptable to the Israelis. Signs Changed
A few minutes before the talks were due to start, an official removed a printed sign from the conference table saying "Jordanian-Palestinian delegation." He replaced it with a hand-written one saying "Jordanian delegation."
Mr. Baker arrived in the conference hall about 30 minutes after the talks were supposed to have begun.
Russia and the United States, co-sponsors of the multilateral conference, said the compositon of the Palestinian team broke ground rules set before peace talks were begun in Madrid.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is excluded from the Middle East process, but it advises the Palestinian team from behind the scenes.
The P.L.O. leadership authorized the expanded delegation to Moscow after two days of argument at its Tunis headquarters.
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Special to The New York Times -- The conference, most of which is being paid for by Saudi Arabia since the Russians are strapped for cash, was part of the peace process begun in Madrid last October.
While the Madrid conference brought together Israel and its immediate Arab neighbors to settle their longstanding territorial disputes, the Moscow talks sought to bring together Israel and more than 20 other Arab, European and Asian nations to discuss broad regional issues. These were scheduled to include arms control, water rights, the environment and economic development.
Whether or not the Palestinian negotiators take their places at the conference's opening session, the talks will mark a series of "firsts" in both Middle Eastern diplomacy and international relations.
For the first time, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other Arab countries will enter into a set of direct negotiations with Israel. For the first time the North African nations of Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania will engage in talks involving the Israelis. For the first time Japan and China, which just established diplomatic relations with Israel, will take part in a Middle East peace negotiation.
And for the first time Russia's Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev, who will be co-chairman of the conference with Mr. Baker 3d, will assume the role previously held by the Soviet Foreign Minister at a major international conference.
The conference is to be held at the House of Unions, near the Kremlin. Although the Russians are themselves short of food, money and energy, and needed their own international conference to assist in economic development, they insisted on holding this meeting in Moscow as originally scheduled -- before the collapse of the Soviet Union -- by Mr. Baker and Eduard A. Shevardnadze.
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