Mission To Cairo

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31498, 12 October 1967, Page 12

Mission To Cairo

As a first step towards mending Anglo-Egyptian relations, the mission of Sir Harold Beeley to Cairo as the special envoy of the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Brown, may at least be hopefully regarded. This new approach to President Nasser will need to be made cautiously. Mr Brown will not wish to give the appearance of dividing the West in seeking a rapprochement with Egypt. His recent talk with President Johnson no doubt revealed a common viewpoint on Middle East problems as a whole. The question that Mr Brown will want answered in Cairo is how far President Nasser is prepared to go in abating bis hostility towards Britain and the United States—not Britain alone.

A fortnight ago in the United Nations the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mr Mahmoud Riad, gave no appearance of diminishing Arab mistrust of the United States, which he charged with having aligned itself with Israel in hostility to the Arab people. The Arabs still assert that, even if Britain and America did not intervene in the war, they gave Israel extensive political, military, and economic assistance. Mr Riad’s anger reached a climax- when he complained that the United States Government still refused to admit that Israel had been the aggressor. In Cairo, Mr Brown’s special envoy will also have to deny Israeli responsibility for the war, which, whatever its immediate cause, was the predictable outcome of persistent Arab provocations over a period of nearly 20 years.

The mission to Cairo will hope to find there some evidence of a change of heart, brought about by dire economic need. A more flexible Arab attitude, however, would have to be matched by one of less rigidity on the Israeli side. If a better relationship with Egypt were achieved, Britain could usefully ask Israel for concessions over Jerusalem and the

occupied zones which might make a peace agreement possible. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Eban, has already proposed the demilitarisation of Sinai and an economic union of Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon. A settlement would also enable the reopening of the Suez Canal and a much needed revival of Egyptian trade.

Can President Nasser be brought to the point of conceding the reasonableness of Israel’s insistence on direct talks with the Arab States? The British attitude in the talks in Cairo will probably be that there are no major issues, Arab recognition of Israel excepted, on which compromise is impossible. Formal recognition of Israel will have to come. Even if it is still withheld, the Arab States desperately need a pause in which to tackle urgent tasks of economic recovery. The mere fact that a British mission has been invited to Cairo suggests that President Nasser feels Britain may have a role to play in easing ArabIsraeli tensions.