Last issues settled

Press, 27 March 1979, Page 8

Last issues settled

NZPA Washington The Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) reached a compromise treat y-signing agreement yesterday with the Egyptian President (Mr Anwar Sadat) that rules out follow-up signings in Cairo and Jerusalem. The arrangement worked out by the two leaders appeared to remove a last-min-ute hitch to the signing ceremony today on the White House north lawn ending 30 years of hostility between Israel and Egypt. Mr Begin had hoped to persuade Mr Sadat to agree to the additional signings and called on him at the Egyptian Embassy. They decided that Mr Begin will visit Cairo at President Sadat’s invitation on April 2, a week after the signing in Washington in Hebrew and Arabic as well as English.

In the arrangement, qualified sources told the Associated Press, Mr Begin dropped his request that President Sadat visit Jerusalem where he launched the peace initiative in November, 1977. Israel also agreed to evacuate the southern Sinai oil wells seven months after the signing of the treaty, Israel Radio has reported.

The radio said that in exchange for recovering the oil wells, Egypt had pledged to supply Israel with an

amount of oil equivalent to that now being extracted by the Israelis from the offshore wells in the Gulf of Suez.

Egypt had wanted an Israeli pull-out from the oilfields four months after the treaty took effect, while Israel had wanted to wait until the end of a ninemonth interim withdrawal.

The 80-minute meeting between Mr Begin and Mr Sadat that, settled the oil wells issue and the matter of Mr Begin’s visit to Cairo was the last formal one before the signing of the treaty at 7 a.m. today New Zealand time.

Israel, Egypt, and the United States were expected to reaffirm today that the bilateral treaty was only the first step towards a comprehensive settlement. , A clause provides that talks will open within six weeks on replacing the Israeli military regime with Palestinian self-rule on the West Bank and Gaza. The absence of any guarantee that these negotiations would succeed or, if they did that the new arrangements would satisfy Palestinian political aspirations, has prompted broad distrust and condemnation of the treaty throughout the Arab world. Most of the treaty text has been published — the treaty itself in November and the appendices and letters in Jerusalem last week.

The final text, including the still undisclosed annex detailing Israel’s phased withdrawal from Sinai, is not expected to be made public until after today’s signing ceremony. Israel agrees to complete its interim withdrawal from most of the Sinai within nine months, and from parts such as the administrative capital at El Arish within three months.

Egypt agrees to exchange ambassadors with Israel one month after completion of the interim withdrawal. A side letter specifies that talks on the West Bank issue will begin a month after the treaty takes effect with the goal of ending in one year. Elections to selfrule "bodies will take place as expeditiously “as possible.”

The treaty calls for the United Nations to send a peace-keeping force into a buffer zone. If the United Nations refuses, the United States will try to assemble a multinational peace force. A memorandum of understanding between Israel and the United States which Mr Begin negotiated in New York at the week-end has been approved by Israeli Cabinet Ministers. The secret memorandum will accompany the peace treaty and is believed to provide political guarantees by the United States in the case of sanctions against Israel.