U.S. envoy off to keep M.E. talks alive

Press, 21 July 1978, Page 5

U.S. envoy off to keep M.E. talks alive

NZPA-Reuter Maidstone Hopes far Middle-East peace talks were still flickering yesterday in spite of two days of inconclusive discussions by Israeli, Egyptian and American Foreign Ministers.

The American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance), who organised the latest round of talks at a castle in south-east England, said a special envoy, Alfred Atherton, would be going to the Middle East almost at once to prepare meetings that he hoped to attend in about two weeks time.

“Major differences remain between the positions of the two sides,” Mr Vance said. “There is a lot of hard work ahead. Common elements in their approaches have been identified.”

The meeting in the secure seclusion of a 1000-year-old castle surrounded by a moat and scores of police and soldiers, offered the first opportunity for a detailed discussion by Egypt and Israel

of separate peace plans each side has put forw'ard since the last round of formal talks broke down in January.

Both Egypt and Israel have rejected each other’s proposals as unacceptable, and neither the Israeli Foreign Minister (Mr Moshe Dayan) nor his Egyptian counterpart, (Mr Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel) has shifted his official position during the two-day meeting at Leeds Castle.

But both sides appeared grudgingly willing to meet again even if no date or site has been set for a next round of talks. Mr Atherton, an assistant to the Secretary of State, will go to Cairo and Jerusalem in an effort to maintain some kind of momentum towards holding meaningful negotiations.

The Israeli and the Egyptian Ministers will have to report to their Governments before either side will make any commitment to further talks. But a critical factor might

be the reaction of President Anwar Sadat, -whose dramatic initiative last November launched the Egyptian-Israeli dialogue with his visit to Israel and address to the Israeli Parliament.

The Egyptian President said in Khartoum on Tuesday that further talks would be useless unless Israel responded to his latest proposals ar a new element was injected as a basis for discussion.

Similarly, it was noted in Britain, that the Israeli Government and the Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) have been under pressure in the Israeli Parliament for the way Mr Dayan handled the Leeds Castle discussions. The authoritative Cairo newspaper, “Al Ahram,” reported yesterday that Egypt had agreed to resume contacts with Israel as a result of Israel’s agreement to reconsider the Egyptian proposals far the West Bank and the Palestinians which it had earlier dismissed as unacceptable.