Precise terms for Sinai sought

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33932, 27 August 1975, Page 15

Precise terms for Sinai sought

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

ALEXANDRIA (Egypt), August 26.

Egypt and Israel today approached the final hurdle to an interim Middle East peace agreement —drafting the precise terms for an Israeli troop withdrawal in the Sinai Desert, according to informed sources.

The United States Secretary of State (Dr Henry Kissinger), who made a round trip between Israel and Egypt yesterday, is expected back again today or tomorrow, Egypt hoping that he will bring word that the two sides are now agreed on all the basic points.

He evidently believes, after his latest round of shuttle diplomacy, that both Israel and Egypt now understand their obligations under the prospective agreement, but there could still be difficulty in setting down the appropriate language to reflect this. He has said, however, that with quickening tempo of negotiations. agreement is possible by the week-end. The problem is finding words setting o,ut the agreement that will not upset the Israeli Government’s domestic opponents, on the one hand, and Egypt’s Arab allie's, on the other.

Both Egypt and Israel now appear to be making the sort of concessions that eluded Dr Kissinger on his abortive Middle East peace mission last March. President Anwar Sadat of

Egypt says that there will be no secret understandings and that everything will be put before the Arab world for it to judge whether Egypt is making the right decision.

Israel is believed to have agreed that Egyptian soldiers will occupy some of the territory in Sinai it relinquished after previously insisting that such territory should be demilitarised and turned over to the United Nations. President Sadat said just before Dr Kissinger’s departure for Jerusalem last night that the precise Egyptian and Israeli troop lines had not yet been agreed upon. But the Egyptian leader exuded confidence, talked expansively to journalists, joked with Dr Kissinger, and referred to the United States Secretary of State as “my friend Henry.”