Fahmi to urge P.L.O. for talks

Press, 22 September 1977, Page 6

Fahmi to urge P.L.O. for talks

NZPA-Reuter Washington The Egyptian Foreign Minister (Mr Ismail Fahmi) will today meet President Carter two days after the Foreign Minister of Israel (Mr Moshe Dayan) to urge him to back the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in a reconvened Middle East peace conference. Mr Dayan and Mr Car’er met on Monday, when the! Israeli Foreign Minister] presented his country’s lat-! est peace formula, and on' Tuesday Mr Dayan expressed the belief that there could be a way around the problem of Palestinian representation. However, he restated Israel’s flat opposition to P.L.O. participation. Before he left Cairo on Sunday, Mr Fahmi said Pres-, ident Anwar Sadat had given him a message for President Carter, emphasising the need for P.L.O. representation at any reconvened conference in Geneva. Mr Dayan, hinting that he was in direct touch with Arab leaders, said after his Washington talks he thought ultimately an agreed formula would be found to reconvene

i the Geneva peace conference i by the end of the year. 11 Mr Dayan told a news tl conference he represented : the first Israeli Government I that did not simply say, : "No, no,” to Arab proposals, but one that was even willing to surrender settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan River in a final peace treaty. However, he said Israel ( : flatly refused to negotiate with the P.L.O. or to allow the establishment of a Palestinian State. He virtually confirmed reports that ne recently met ■ King Hussein of Jordan, but he said he could not say one I way or the other because he is concerned with other people too and they are not too eager to have any such I meetings publicised. He reiterated Israel’s willingness to have Palestinians I included in a Jordanian delegation, and, apparently in a mood, said Israel would not go and iniquire whether they are II sympathetic to the P.L.O. Is- ; rael has previously insisted ijthat Palestinians in another L Arab delegation should not ■ be members of the P.L.O.