Topics for Nixon and Mrs Meir

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 17

Topics for Nixon and Mrs Meir

(N .Z .P.A.-Reuter—Copy right) WASHINGTON, September 18. President Nixon and the Israeli Prime Minister (Mrs Golda Meir) will meet in Washington today to try to save the fragile Middle East cease-fire, shaken by Israel’s withdrawal from peace talks after alleged Egyptian violations.

Their urgent White House talks will centre on Israel’s insistence that the United States must find ways to peril suade or force Egypt to with- . I draw Russian missiles reported to have been brought into the Suez cease-fire zone after • the military standstill came • into effect on August 8. Their talks come in the - background of a further worsening of the Middle East crisis by the fighting in Jordan, 1 where King Hussein’s Army is battling Palestine guerrillas

for control of Amman, and where the guerrillas are holding 54 hostages, 38 of them Americans, from three airliners hijacked last week. TEMPO OF VIOLENCE Mrs Meir arrived in the [United States amid extraordinary security precautions which reflected a mood of grave concern generated by the rising tempo of violence in the Middle East. The Prime Minister flew from New York in a private or chartered plane without notice from an undisclosed airport and arrived under heavy guard and in the strictest secrecy at a time and place revealed only hours later by Israeli officials. Her arguments that Egypt must rectify the alleged ceasefire violations before Israel returns to indirect peace talks are expected to meet an equally firm plea from the President that Middle East diplomacy should not be endangered by Egyptian actions

•which so far have not endangered her country’s security. United States officials say that the President will advocate getting the Middle East crisis back on the diplomatic track, with Israel assured of American military backing should Russian arms support for Egypt tip the military balance in favour of the Arabs. MILITARY AID President Nixon is expected to assure Mrs Meir that the United States is drawing up a new package of military and economic aid which in essence will rectify the alleged installation of more Russian missiles on the Egyptian side of the cease-fire line. Mrs Meir said in New York

lon Wednesday night that it would be very difficult for Israel to return to the peace talks, started under the auspices of the United Nations mediator, Dr Gunnar Jarring, unless certain conditions were met in her talks with President Nixon. She did not say what those conditions were, but United States officials were hopeful that she would agree that the new aid package would redress the dangers she felt Israel was facing as a result of the reported improvements in Egyptian defences in the Suez area. DEGREE OF TRUST United States and Israeli officials agree that the talks tomorrow boil down to a question of the degree of trust that Israel can show in the willingness and ability of the United States to safeguard the cease-fire and stand firm against the bad faith it

believes Egypt and the Soviet Union have displayed since the start of the truce. President Nixon is hoping to convince Mrs Meir that the United States is not jeopardising Israel’s security as it treads a delicate path in the Middle East in the hope that the alleged Egyptian violations will stop and the' peace talks can be resumed.