Reopening the Suez Canal

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32633, 15 June 1971, Page 12

Reopening the Suez Canal

President Sadat has set out more specifically than in the past the conditions on which he would consent to an extension of the cease-fire and the reopening of the Suez CanaL The main stumbling-block to their acceptance by Israel is still the Sinai occupation. Mr Sadat wants a partial Israeli withdrawal during an interim extension and full evacuation by the end of a second extension of six months. The United States Government, it seems, has known of these conditions, as a major Egyptian requirement, since the visit in May of the Secretary of State, Mr Rogers, to Cairo and Tel Aviv. He will already have discussed them with each Government; no-one will have a better appreciation of the possibilities, such as they are, of their acceptance by Israel. It is clear now that the reopening of the canal has become a key issue in the negotiation of a wider peace settlement Mr Sadat will be no less anxious to facilitate it than is Mr Rogers, notwithstanding the belligerency of his statement that in no circumstances lyill Egypt bargain over its internationally-agreed frontiers with Palestine. The clearing of the canal is not thought to present any major problems. The canal authority has said that it could be restored to its pre-war capacity in four months; that it could be deepened to take 150,000-ton tankers in two to three years; and that in six or seven years tankers of up to 250,000 tons could use it fully laden. That prospect must appeal enormously to Mr Sadat, in terms of potential revenues and the rehabilitation of the scarred and semi-deserted towns on the Egyptian side of the waterway. Once the canal was restored to commercial use, the Egyptians would surely think twice before again imperilling it by aggressive military adventures.

But the central problem remains: how to reconcile the Egyptian and Israeli attitudes. Another war would be far more destructive for both sides than that of 1967—and would solve nothing. It might not even be possible to confine it to the Middle East Clearly the United States will have to put pressure on Israel to take Egyptian good faith on trust. Between Israel’s rejection of anything but a partial withdrawal from Sinai, and Egypt’s insistence on a full withdrawal and the right of Egyptian troops to occupy the canal’s east bank, there must be room for compromise. The United States has already urged an Israeli withdrawal to the 1948-67 armistice lines. If Israel would consent to that, even as a preliminary to a more realistic border adjustment, a solution fully recognising Israel’s independent, sovereign status might yet be found. It would also Jielp if Mr Sadat would commit Egypt to non-belligerency, as Israel has urged. While he continues, presumably with Russian approval, to take the line that all concessions must come from Israel, no agreement is likely.