Behind the Headlines the Talks Will Go on

When President Anwar Sadat once-again stressed here yesterday at his joint press conference with Premier Menachem Begin the need to reach “a comprehensive peace” he actually meant to convey, according to assessments by analysts following the press conference, that the time was approaching when the entire Arab-Israeli conflict could no longer be isolated from what now seems to be a process of normalization between Israel and Egypt.

When both Sadat and Begin mentioned the crisis in Lebanon as one of the issues they discussed, they actually meant that the issue at hand is the situation in Syria and its possible affects on the peace process. And when they spoke about their differences over the settlements, they were actually speaking about long-term differences over the future of the administered territories.

Yet, despite those basic disagreements and the fact that there was no break through on any controversial issue, the talks will go on, and next month Sadat’s yacht will probably anchor in the Haifa Harbor.

It appears, therefore, that the Alexandria summit has established what seemed to be in formation at earlier meetings — an alternative channel of negotiations in addition to lower rank, ministerial, negotiations. It seems, according to observers, that Begin and Sadat are determined to keep this channel open, whatever the scope of the disagreements. The channel will remain open as long as they deem it necessary, and it will be less affected by the ups and downs of the regular negotiations.

It also seems, observers noted, that the two have reached an understanding that the autonomy talks should continue as if they did not meet and that they should continue meeting as if there were no difficulties concerning the autonomy talks. The common approach says: let the ministers talk specifics and let us continue dealing with the more “global” issues, such as south Lebanon, Syria and even Jerusalem.

SADAT RELIES ON U.S. PRESSURE

One guess here was that Sadat relies heavily on the Americans to do the difficult task of pressuring Israel. He did not seem to back down on any of his earlier positions. The official Egyptian daily Al Gumhuriya wrote yesterday that Egypt demanded “full” self-government for the Palestinians, a far cry from the limited administrative council that Begin talks about. Thus, each party continues to talk its own language, but they both continue to talk.

One indication of the wide gap between the two leaders was Begin’s response during yesterday’s press conference as to whether he would accept international supervision over the elections for autonomy. “There is no need for supervision,” Begin said. “I can assure you that it will be a most secret and democratic process of elections.” He pointed as an example to the elections for mayors on the West Bank three years ago which brought to power pro-PLO men.

But as wide as the gap is, Begin and Sadat also found the time to talk about normalization. Sadat wants no crisis at present and neither does Begin. As far as Sadat is concerned, as long as Israeli troops pull out of Sinai, he can endure a few disagreements.