U.S. Position on Mideast Peace Talks Seem Confused and Vacillating

The U.S. government’s positions on both procedure and substance for a Middle East peace settlement appeared confused and vacillating this weekend on the eve of Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan’s meetings with President Carter and secretary of State Cyrus Vance. In addition, the campaign by Arab states to have the U.S. put pressure on Israel also intensified over the weekend.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy announced in Cairo as he was deporting today for paris enroute to the U.S. that he would urge the Carter Administration to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as a prelude to the resumption of the Geneva peace talks. He also told reporters that he would state there could be no Mideast peace without the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and that Egypt was still retaining war as its final option.

In addition, Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Yamani warned last week that his country would not increase oil production if Israel did not with-draw from the occupied territories. This was a departure from a pledge by Saudian officials to Carter last spring that oil would not be used as a political weapon in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The State department, in its latest comments, declared publicly that the U.S. continues to hold that the six nations in the original Geneva conference–the U.S., the Soviet Union, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria–must decide on who attends a reconvened conference. Behind the scenes, however, the U.S. was reliably reported as favoring a pan-Arab delegation, including the PLO and West Bank mayors mostly in league with the PLO.

NATURE OF ARAB DELEGATION

In another procedural puzzle, the State Department spokesmen concentrated last Thursday on the single Arab delegation idea and refused to discuss anything else. However, after they had emphasized that idea, Vance told reporters that Palestinians serving with a Jordanian delegation would be acceptable to the U.S. When the Jewish Telegraphic agency asked the Department whether it had communicated with Palestinian Arabs opposed to the PLO, spokesman Hodding Carter mentioned only those Arabs whom the Israelis invited to meet with Vance during his visit to Jerusalem last month.

Meanwhile, the State Department gave assurances last Friday that UN Security Council Resolution 242 continues as the basis for a Mideast settlement. The PLO has refused to accept even President Carter’s modified view of 242, namely, that the Palestinians demand to be designated as more than refugees “would suit us fine.”

But the pan-Arab delegation idea may be construed as being a means for the terrorists to sit at the conference table without agreeing to 242. However, the State Department statement last week that Palestinians “must” be included in the negotiations also affirms that those who meet in Geneva “should adhere” to Resolutions 242 and 338.