U.S. Says It Has Draft Proposals from Israel to Settle the Mideast Conflict

The United States acknowledged today that it has received proposals from Israel to settle the Middle East conflict and indicated its expectations that the Arab governments will submit drafts for discussion here and in New York beginning after the middle of this month.

State Department spokesman Hodding Carter said Israel’s draft was transmitted “relatively recently” and that while none has yet come from the Arabs, “it is entirely possible” that they will be forthcoming. He said that Secretary of State Cyrus Vance had asked the Middle East nations to “give us their ideas on the whole range of negotiations.”

With the Arab, Israeli and Soviet foreign ministers to meet with President Carter and Vance, beginning in the third week of September, the State Department spokesman cautioned that the proposals from the Middle East should not be considered “the entire pedestal” on which the U.S. effort for a settlement rests.

He said the U.S. will not offer again a set of proposals and that “specifics on what comes out of Geneva” or other peace negotiations are “up to the parties.” He reiterated that the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 is the “fundamental base” for agreement and “we need no further step in the Security Council.”

MAPS ARE NOT INCLUDED

While the State Department declined to discuss the Israeli draft, Premier Menachem Begin said in an Israel Radio interview yesterday that “We submitted clear proposals according to the principles I presented in the private talks” he had with President Carter during his July visit to Washington. The draft, Begin stressed, does not contain maps. “The borders will be determined only in negotiations between us and our neighbors,” he said. “We have informed the U.S. President of the principles which we support.”

Begin went on to say that Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan will discuss “the principles” in Washington. “We know that the Secretary of State also asked for a prototype of a peace treaty from the Arab countries,” Begin said. “They made no commitment to him they would furnish him with such a document and it is possible that the Arab countries will submit principles only. We will see this and know about this during the next two weeks,” Begin said.

He disclosed that since his Washington visit he has received three messages from President Carter and he has sent the President two messages. He did not reveal any contents but said that prior to his visit to Romania the President “wrote to me that we have established a close personal relationship.”