Wolf Will Not Be Reprimanded for Meeting with PLO Officials; State Department Considers Case Closed

Milton Wolf, the U.S Ambassador to Austria, will not be reprimanded or asked to resign over his three recent contacts with representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, including the high-ranking PLO official Issam Sartawi, according to State Department spokesman Tom Reston.

Reston stated “we do not regard this as contravening our policy toward the PLO and we regard the matter of the meetings that Ambassador Wolf had as a matter that is closed.” Other details of the Wolf-PLO sessions were aired at the briefing concerning Wolf’s two “chance encounters” with Sartawi and his third encounter which was arranged by a telephone call between Wolf and Sartawi “to clarify the position of the PLO on a communique being issued” just before the meeting last month in Vienna between PLO chief Yasir Arafat and Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky and former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt.

Additional details were disclosed today by Reston in response to questions submitted but not dealt with at the State Department briefing yesterday. Reston reported that one of the two chance encounters was aboard a private chartered plane from Paris to Vienna (chartered originally in Vienna) which took place either June 8 or June 9 and Kreisky was also aboard the plane. The second meeting was also sometime before the Arafat-Kreisky meeting in Vienna and took place on the weekend of July 7-8. Wolf reported all three meetings to the State Department.

RESPONSE TO DAYAN’S STATEMENT

On another issue, this one regarding foreign Minister Moshe Dayan’s statement Tuesday that the U.S. is in agreement with Israel’s policy of preemptive attacks by Israel against terrorist bases in southern Lebanon, the State Department issued the following statement, a statement which was also delayed a day because of the hectic activity created by the sudden resignation yesterday of Young:

“The record is clear that we have had differences with Israel over its actions in Lebanon. We have made clear our position on numerous occasions and the government of Israel is in no doubt about it. As for the Israeli position that their premptive bombing strikes constitute self-defense, we have also made our position clear from time to time …. We are not going to get into a public debate about this matter at this time. We, of course, are in continuing contact with Israel about the situation in Lebanon over which we remain deeply concerned.

“The United States unreservedly supports the territorial sovereignty and independence of Lebanon and the Security Council resolutions calling on all to do the same.”