State Department Responds to Middle East Related Developments

The State Department responded today to three Middle East-related developments. They were an announcement by the Palestine Liberation Organization yesterday that it has opened an office here to be known as the Palestine Information Office; a statement by PLO chief Yasir Arafat that a Palestinian state would not pose a threat to Israel; and an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister, Sheikh Zaki Yamani, who implied that his country might take economic reprisals against the U.S. if Congress rejects the proposed sale of 60 F-15 jet fighters to Saudi Arabia.

The State Department’s chief spokesman, Hodding Carter, replying to reporters’ questions, said there was no legal way to prevent the opening of a PLO office “as long as the organization or person” involved complies with the law.

He added, however, that this “in no way… changes our own feelings that we discourage the opening of such an office and we continue to hold to the position that there will be no contacts between our government officials and representatives of the PLO.” Carter said the State Department “has no substantive response” to Arafat’s statement, adding, “We have made known very clearly what our position is on a Palestinian entity. It is unchanged as is our position on the PLO.”

With respect to Yamani, Carter denied that there was any linkage between the Middle East aircraft sales and Saudi Arabian oil and dollar holdings. Carter also said that no new travel plans were scheduled at this time for Ambassador Alfred L. Atherton, President Carter’s special envoy to the Middle East.

INTENTIONS OF PLO OFFICE

The office in Washington that the PLO says is intended to provide the American people with information about the Palestinian people, has been registered with the Justice Department as required by law. According to the information filed, it has a budget of $44,000 for its first six months of operation and the sale source of its funds is the PLO.

The director is Hatim L. Hussaini, 37, who is also assistant director of the Arab Information Center here. Hussaini said that he and the assistant director, Hatim Khatib, are citizens of Jordan. A third staff member is Marilyn Johnson, an American. The PLO failed in an attempt to open an office here in 1976 when the director was asked to leave the country because he had made false statements on his visa application.

VIEWS BY ARAFAT AND YAMANI

Arafat’s remarks were made in an interview in Beirut with New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis yesterday and published in The Times this morning. He argued that it was unrealistic to assume that a Palestinian state “which is going to start from zero for the establishment of its institutions, its economy, culture, social problems… would …be able to form any serious threat to Israel.” Arafat was also quoted as saying that “the only possible solution” in the Middle East is a Soviet-American guarantee of any settlement, based on the U.S.-Soviet joint declaration of last Oct. 1.

Yamani, interviewed in Riyadh by correspondents of the Washington Post, warned that if Saudi Arabia does not receive the F-15s it will diminish “the amount of (Saudi) enthusiasm to help the West and cooperate with the United States.”

Asserting that the planes are needed to defend Saudi territory, he said, “If we don’t get it, then we will have a feeling you are not concerned with out security and you don’t appreciate our friendship.” He warned that Saudi Arabia’s willingness to defend the U.S. dollar depends in some measure on its special relationship with the U.S.