Crucial Syrian visit by Kissinger

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33532, 13 May 1974, Page 13

Crucial Syrian visit by Kissinger

(N.Z.P.A-Reuter—Copyright)

JERUSALEM, May 12.

Dr Henry’ Kissinger today will make perhaps his most crucial shuttle to Damascus to try to stop the Golan Heights fighting as Israeli-Syrian disengagement talks enter a decisive stage.

He will carry with him what the Israelis say are their full proposals, and bring back the Syrian reply tonight.

A highly placed Israeli source last night said that without some positive sign from Syria, the talks could be deadlocked by tonight. But, the source added, there were signs this would not be the case.

The Minister of Information (Mr Shimon Peres) speaking after he and other Israeli negotiators had a twohour meeting with the United States Secretary of State last night, said that he expected today to be very important in deciding the fate of the talks.

Dr Kissinger said that he thought both sides were beginning to examine seriously each other’s position, but said: “We have very tough hurdles ahead of us.” Precise details of the Israeli proposals were not revealed, but Mr Peres said that they were “complete, and full ideas.” To reveal more might endanger the delicate negotiations. “I think this week will be essential for seeing if an agreement can be reached or not,” he said. Israel firm Israel apparently is standing firm that it cannot give up more than the 300 square miles of Syrian territory it took in the October war, plus the battered town of Kuneitra and some land at the southern end of the heights

to straighten out the ceasefire line. It also is likely to agree to hand over the hotly disputed Mount Hermon peaks to a proposed United Nations force.

The proposals are understood to contain ideas for a buffer zone, though some of the areas will contain returned civilians who fled during the war, and a 25-mile wide area under United Nations supervision in which both sides can have only restricted forces. Syrian view In Damascus, official sources, commenting on reports that Israel was prepared to withdraw from all land captured during the October war and from half of the provincial capital of Kuneitra, taken in 1967, and hand over the peaks of Mount Hermon to a United Nations force, said such concessions were so small as to be absurd.

Unless Syria got what it wanted, the fighting on the Golan front would be intensified, the sources said. Informed sources said that the Israeli concessions had not referred to the two fundamental Syrian demands: that Israel should commit itself to withdrawing from all land occupied during both wars, and to guarantee the national rights of the Palestinian Arabs.

The Syrian Government is understood to require that all Kuneitra be returned plus

the three hills overlooking] the town. In Beirut, King Faisal of] Saudi Arabia was reported] to have warned that the Arab] oil embargo against the United States might be reimposed if no agreement were reached to disengage the Syrian and Israeli armies on the Golan Heights. The Beirut newspaper, “Al Anwar,” said that the Monarch gave the warning during his meeting in Riyadh on Thursday with Dr Kissinger. King Faisal was also reported as having warned Dr Kissinger that a new Middle East war would break out if his present shuttle between Syria and Israel failed to produce a disengagement agreement.