Envoy due in Beirut for talks on troops

Press, 28 October 1982, Page 8

Envoy due in Beirut for talks on troops

NZPA-Reuter Washington

A special United States envoy, Morris Draper, is expected in Beirut today to coordinate negotiations between the Israeli and Lebanese Governments on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. But in Jerusalem, the Israeli officials voiced surprise over Washington reports that direct talks might begin this week. A State department spokesman, John Hughes, yesterday suggested that Mr Draper’s brief illness in London had disrupted his planned consultations with Israel and Lebanon on starting the talks.

He said that once the envoy'arrived, Lebanon and Israel would decide how their discussions would proceed. adding: “I don’t think there’s any doubt about the desire to enter those talks.”

Washington's goal is to

negotiate a withdrawal of Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian forces by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said that fresh Marines would go to Beirut this week to replace troops now there, a signal that the United States military presence in Lebanon may be an extended one.

President Ronald Reagan last month committed 1200 Marines to join French and Italian forces in a peacekeeping unit to help Lebanon’s new Government reassert its sovereignty after the invasion by Israel and expulsion of Palestinian guerrillas. The President set no deadline for the operation, but he said that it would be of “limited'duration.”

Israel easily survived an attempt to oust its delegation from the United. Nations General Assembly yesterday. The challenge from Iran w r as set aside by a vote of 75

to nine, w’ith 31 abstentions. The United States threatened to cut off its financial contributions to the United Nations, thus paralysing the organisation, and to withdraw if Israel were rejected. Israel’s chief delegate, Yehuda Blum, responding to what he called the forces of irrationality and lawlessness, said that the proponents of Israel’s ouster might want to ponder how much their prestige was enhanced as a result of “their antics." Meanwhile, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Menachem Begin, has denounced Mr Reagan’s latest Middle East peace proposals, has reaffirmed his determination to annex the West Bank and Gaza, and has reminded Washington that Israel was not a “vassal of the United States."

Mr Begin, cited by Israeli radio, was speaking to the Israeli Parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs and Defence.