Israeli move gets cautious welcome

Press, 15 January 1986, Page 6

Israeli move gets cautious welcome

NZPA-Reuter Cairo Egypt gave a cautious initial welcome yesterday to Israel’s decision to settle by arbitration their dispute over the Taba enclave, which Cairo sees as a key to improving ties. President Hosni Mubarak’s chief political adviser, Osama Baz, met the president and later said: ! ‘We have not received formal word from Israel yet but we hope things will move in a positive direction.”

The Israeli Cabinet has buried divisions on how to settle the dispute over Taba, which Israel kept after handing the rest of the Sinai peninsula back to Egypt in 1982.

It adopted a plan by the Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, to accept arbitration. Eqypt had insisted on arbitration through rounds of deadlocked negotiations. An Israeli Cabinet statement also called for the return of an Egyptian ambassador to Tel Aviv and improved trade, tourism and cultural links.

Egypt is the only Arab country to have relations wih Israel after their 1979 United States-brokered

peace treaty, but Cairo withdrew its ambassador after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982.

Israel has been disappointed by the slow progress of trade and tourism from Egypt.

Relations were strained by the murder — still unresolved — of an Israeli diplomat in Cairo last August, tension in the Middle East, and the killing of seven Israeli tourists by an Egyptian conscript policeman in Sinai in October.

Egypt set three conditions for sending back its ambassador — the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, settlement of the Taba dispute and progress towards resolving the Palestinian question.

Cairo has said talks between Mubarak and Peres, who was reported keen on such a meeting, could not take place until an agreement was reached on settling the Taba dispute. Both are scheduled to visit France later this month but it was not known whether they will meet.