Sadat, Begin meet on thorny issues

Press, 28 May 1979, Page 8

Sadat, Begin meet on thorny issues

NZPA-Reuter El Arish

With many outstanding issues still to be resolved, the Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) and Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat will meet today for the first time since they signed their peace treaty two moths ago. Mr Begin is President Sadat’s guest in El Arish, a desert oasis town which was part of Israeli-occupied Sinai until three days ago.

The town was returned to Egypt in the first big territorial hand-over since the treaty ended 30 years of hostility and four wars. But the treaty was only a first step, and the private

meeting will enable Mr Begin and President Sadat to sound out their latest feelings on such thorny matters as Palestinian autonomy in Israeli-occupied territories. At the first round of talks on the Palestinian issue — boycotted by the Palestinians, whose leaders have denounced the peace treaty — in Beersheba in Israel’s Negev Desert on Friday, the two delegations set out widely-divergent positions. Israel offered severelylimited autonomy for Palestinians on the Jordan West Bank and the Gaza Strip just north of El Arish; Egypt wants much broader autonomy for the Palestin-

ians as a first step towards independence. The question Of the divided city of Jerusalem will probably be high on the agenda for President Sadat and Mr Begin, and they may also decide whether their border should be opened immediately or whether that move should wait nine months, as called for under the treaty. They will be joined in the talks by the United States Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance), who will also go with them when they board President Sadat’s plane' and fly over Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, before turning south to Cairo International Airport.