Sadat rules out war as crisis solution

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33753, 28 January 1975, Page 15

Sadat rules out war as crisis solution

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, January 27. President Sadat of Egypt now rules out war as a means of solving the Middle East crisis, but said that it was up to Israel to make the peace gesture that would permit a political solution.

In a television interview in Aswan on the eve of his official visit to France, on an arms-shopping mission, President Sadat said: “I will tell you, very frankly—and I am speaking for both Egvpt and Syria—that we are not preparing an attack against Israel.”

He added: “What I ask is that Israel, if she desires peace, should pull back from three fronts—the Sinai, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank of the Jordan—as a gesture of peace. After that we will go to Geneva. “The extent of these retreats is negotiable.”

President Sadat also said: “I think that after the war of October, 1973, it is obvious that a solution to the ArabIsraeli conflict will not, and cannot, be found through military action or force.” Discussing Middle East peace prospects in the immediate future, Mr Sadat said: “Let us try officially to reach a state of nonbeliigerence. Then let’s leave it to future generations to decide what will be done. “My time expires in 1976, and I am not seeking to extend it one day further. That is a fact.”

Mr Sadat said that Egypt had decided to diversify its sources of arms, which was' one of the main reasons for his visit to France, because the Soviet Union had delivered no arms to Egypt for 14 months.

“Let us hope that the Soviet leaders will change their attitude soon, but the question why remains — above all when they replaced everything in Syria before the cease-fire, and have given still more in the last few months to the Syrians,” he said.

He was certain, he said, that the Israelis had been preparing an atomic weapon, because they had received a reactor from France. “But if Israel ever used nuclear weapons she would have to accept the consequences, because we would answer back to the challenger,” he declared. A report from New York ‘ says that President Assad is quoted as having said that . he is willing to accept a f demilitarised zone along his . border with Israel. The magazine, “Time,” ] quotes Mr Assad as having

told a touring group of American businessmen, who had asked him if he was prepared to consider a demilitarised zone on the Golan Heights: “We may agree to reciprocal measures on either side of the border for any length of time. If they (the Israelis) agree to 10 kilometres (6.25 miles) on either side, so do we, but not if it is imposed on us.” Asked if he was ready for another round of disengagement talks with Israel, Mr Assad replied: “I am ready. If the Israelis are ready, I am quite ready.”

Mrs Meir criticised In Bonn yesterday, Dr Nahum Goldmann, president of the Jewish World Congress, was quoted as having criticised the former Israeli Prime Minister, Mrs Golda Meir. The West German news magazine, “Der Speigel,” quoted Dr Goldmann as saying in an interview in Paris: “What Golda Meir has done was completely unrealistic: not to recognise the existence of a Palestinian people. The fact that there has never been a Palestinian State is really no argument. “In the long run, Israel’s only real guarantee for her existence is to become an integral part of the Middle East’s family of peoples, and to co-operate with them.

"I am convinced that there could be fruitful co-opera-tion, and that, in one or two generations, Jewish intelligence and Jewish technical know-how, together with Arab economic richness, could change the Middle East into a paradise.”