Vance seeks formula to get ‘stuck’ negotiations moving

Press, 7 August 1978, Page 8

Vance seeks formula to get ‘stuck’ negotiations moving

NZPA Jerusalem The American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) has arrived in Jerusalem in search of a formula to keep the Middle East peace negotiations alive.

With talks between Israel and Egypt at a precarious stage, there was a mood of uncertainty and doubt about Mr Vance’s latest trip. In welcoming ceremonies at the Ben-Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, the Israeli Foreign Minister (Mr Moshe Dayan) told Mr Vance that Egypt and Israel were “stuck" in their negotiations and needed help from the United States.

The peace efforts have run into obstacles as a result of President Anwar Sadat’s sudden cancellation of a planned meeting next week of Foreign Ministers because of what ne called Israel’s intransigence. Mr Vance believes that the peace talks are at a serious juncture. In remarks at the airport, he repeated what he had told an American Congressional committee on Friday, that the talks were at a "critical point.” Various ideas are being discussed privately by Mr

Vance and his aides, in advance of the start of the talks with the Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) and other Israeli officials, and with President Sadat and Egyptian officials in Alexandria.

According to his schedule, Mr Vance plans to return immediately to Washington on Wednesday to report to President Jimmy Carter on what steps the United States should take, if any, to help revive negotiations. Among the possibilities being discussed by the Americans are:

Persuading Mr Sadat to allow the Foreign Ministers to meet as planned, if not this week then in the near future, thereby allowing the two sides to define more exactly their differences and permitting the United States to offer compromises to bridge the gaps that would remain;

Inviting Mr Begin and Mr Sadat to Washington for

talks separately or together,! or a combination of both,! with Mr Carter to see; whether compromises can be I more easily achieved at the! highest level; Some kind of American initiative, similar perhaps to I shuttle diplomacy, in which j the United States would; offer a peace plan of its own and the ideas would be circulated to Egypt and Israel in the hope of bringing about compromises through American prestige and pressure. In addition to what the United States is considering, Israeli officials have already indicated that Mr Begin may propose that negotiations with Egypt center on the separate agreement for a| settlement of the Sinai problem, something less than al full peace treaty but morel than the disengagement agreements negotiated in 1974 and 1975 by the Secretary of State at that time, Henry Kissinger.