Parties agree on Lebanon, but ...

Press, 21 August 1984, Page 10

Parties agree on Lebanon, but ...

NZPA-AP Tel Aviv Israel’s two main political blocs agreed yesterday on a policy towards Lebanon, but the issues of Jewish settlements in occupied territories and talks with Jordan still blocked efforts to form a bipartisan Government, party leaders said. Negotiating teams for the Likud bloc and the Labour Party met for four hours trying to iron out their foreign policy differences and to find enough common ground to govern in a joint Cabinet. Another meeting was set for today. Yitzhak Navon, Labour’s candidate for Foreign Minister, said the two groups had reached an accord on a Lebanon policy. He gave no details, but Israeli television reported the leaders agreed that the Israeli Army would be withdrawn from southern Lebanon within a short time after the new Government is formed. After inconclusive elections on July 23 that gave Labour, three more seats in the Knesset than Likud but not enough to claim a

majority, President Chaim Herzog asked Labour’s leader, Shimon Peres, to try to form a coalition. Mr Herzog urged that Labour and Likud join in a National Unity Government, despite their differences on Lebanon, the West Bank of the Jordan River and how to handle the inflation rate. Mr Yitzhak Shamir’s Cabinet, which is serving as a caretaker government, heard reports on Lebanon yesterday from the Chief of Staff,. Lieutenant-General Moshe Levy and the Intelligence chief, Major-General Ehud Barak. The Cabinet placed a news blackout on the discussion. Meanwhile, the Military Conimand announced that Israeli troops would close the last open gateway between northern Lebanon and the occupied south for three days. It said vehicular and pedestrian traffic will be stopped at the Bater-a-Chouf checkpoint to set up new crossing procedures designed to reduce arms smuggling.