Strauss mission fails completely

Press, 21 August 1979, Page 8

Strauss mission fails completely

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem

The mission of the American special envoy to the Middle East, Robert Strauss, has completely failed to win Israeli and Egyptian support for an American proposal to present a new resolution on the Middle East to the United Nations SecurityCouncil. Mr Strauss will return to Washington empty-handed today after four days of talks with the Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt during which both leaders expressed what the envoy called “serious reservations” about the proposals. Mr Strauss hinted that he would try to persuade the Carter Administration to drop the plan for the new resolution, which has been seen as a, manoeuvre aimed at getting the Palestine Liberation Organisation to join the peace talks. He said he would report to President Carter and the Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) and “I am confident they will do as I expect them to do.”

Mr Begin told Mr Strauss at a two-hour meeting at the week-end that Israel completely rejected the proposals to introduce a new resolution which would, in effect, amend the 12-year-old Resolution 242 on which all Middle East peace-making efforts have been based.

An official Israeli statement said the proposal contradicted American commitments to Israel made in 1975 and reaffirmed in 1979. The commitments referred to included an undertaking by Washington not to negotiate with the P.L.O. unless it recognised Israel’s right to exist and endorsed Resolution 242. The exact details of the proposed resolution have not been made public, but Israel apparently feared it would include references to Palestinian rights which would ultimately lead to the creation of a Palestinian State. Egypt’s reservations on the United States draft seemed to centre on the feeling that it would not help the present negotiations for autonomy for the one million Palestinians living in the Jordan West Bank and Gaza Strip areas.

The Egyptian Prime Minister (Mr Mustapha Khalil) said in an interview published in Cairo that the P.L.O. could not take part in the autonomy talks because it rejected the IsraeliEgyptian peace treaty. The special United States envoy went to Israel ostensibly to defuse Israeli suspicions over Washington’s latest intentions in the Middle East. But those suspicions have increased since .his arrival and informed Israeli sources said the real aim may have been to sound out how far Israel could be pushed on the Palestinian issue. The Israeli press has increasingly referred recently to the possibility that Israel might pull out of talks with Egypt on Palestinian autonomy if United States pressure became too great.