P.L.O. expected to be angry

Press, 4 August 1977, Page 8

P.L.O. expected to be angry

NZPA-Reuter Beirut Palestinians are expected to react angrily to a proposed Arab-Israeli Foreign Ministers meeting in the United States excluding the Palestine Liberation Organisation, according to observers in Beirut. There was no immediate comment from P.L.O. officials to the announcement by the American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) and the Egyptian President (Mr Anwar Sadat) after their twodays talks in Alexandria.

But the P.L.O. last Monday reiterated its insistence on independent and equal representation at Middle East peace talks as Mr Vance began his six-nation Middle East tour.

According to Palestinian sources, the P.L.O. chief, Mr Yasser Arafat, and several key members of the P.L.O. executive committee, the organisation's cabinet, last night reviewed Middle East developments with the Syrian President (Mr Hafez AlAssad) in Damascus.

The meeting came after a Beirut newspaper report that Syria and the P.L.O. had reached “written agreement” on a common policy towards solving the Middle East conflict which Mr Assad would convey to Mr Vance. The independent "AlAnwar” said that the agreement called for an independent Palestinian representation at a reconvened Geneva peace conference and the establishment of an independent Palestinian State on the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the River Jordan and the Gaza Strip. Israel rejects the idea of an independent Palestinian State as suggested and views the P.L.O. as a "terrorist” organisation unfit to take part in peace negotiations such as the Geneva conference. Palestinian sources said that at the Damascus meeting President Assad and the Palestinian leaders stressed a need for complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and reiterated that the rights of the Palestinians must be guaranteed.