Iran and Egypt make joint call

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33740, 13 January 1975, Page 13

Iran and Egypt make joint call

(New Zealand Press Association—Copyright)

CAIRO, January 13.

The Shah of Iran has joined Egypt in calling for total withdrawal by Israel from occupied Arab lands, and in affirming the “right of the Palestinian people to their homeland.”

In a statement distributed yesterday by the Middle East News Agency, the Prime Minister of Egypt (Mr Abdel Aziz Higazi) said the Shah and President Sadat of Egypt reached full agreemen tin their talks, which began on Thursday. "There was a full agreement on political strategy, the necessity of Israel’s withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands, and the affirmation of the right of the Palestinian people to their homeland and the Arab character of Jerusalem,” Mr Higazi said. At a dinner, Mr Sadat said Egypt was short of oil fast month, and the Shah quickly helped out.

“Only last month, we were about to add a new crisis to the crises we were facing already,” Mr Sadat said. “We needed oil, and I sent word to my brother, the Shah. “In moments, 650,000 tons of oil reached the Egyptian people so that they may surmount the crisis,” Mr Sadat said. BORDER DISPUTE Mr Higazi said the talks showed the two countries were playing a basic role in bolstering the Middle East peace efforts, strengthening relations between Iran and the Arab countries, and ending any contradictions which existed in the region.

This presumably referred to the border dispute between Iraq and Iran, which erupted in armed clashes and the shooting down last month of two fighter aircraft, by Iranian Hawk missiles.

Mr Sadat, and King Hussein, of Jordan, whom the Shah visited before he arrived in Egypt, are mediating in the dispute at the behest of the Arab summit conference in Rabat last October.