Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said today that he “welcomes” a European initiative but stressed that he remains firmly committed to the Camp David agreements which are the basis for Middle East peace. The Egyptian leader made that position clear to the European leaders he met earlier today in Luxembourg and to President Valery Giscard d’Estaing with whom he conferred for over two hours this afternoon in Paris.
Sadat said in both Luxembourg and Paris that the European initiative and the Camp David agreements are not incompatible but must be synchronized between the various interested countries. At a press conference in Luxembourg, Sadat said he welcomes a European initiative and “am even asking for one” because “Europe must take its share of the responsibility for peace either now or in the future, when guarantees in the area will be needed.”
He also said he is in favor of “joint and simultaneous recognition between Israel and the Palestinians” but is opposed to the inclusion of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the negotiations at this state. He also said that Jordan should participate in the negotiations “after a full autonomy agreement is signed.”
Sadat, who addressed the European Parliament yesterday at the invitation of its. President, Simone Veil, conferred this morning with the current chairman of the European Council of Ministers, Dutch Foreign Minister Christoph van der Klaauw.
In Paris, he was given a State reception by Giscard, who personally welcomed him at the air port. As if to publicly demonstrate the resumpttion of friendly Franco-Egyptian ties after a two-and-a-half years of relative coldness, the two men rode together through the streets of Paris to the Palais Marigny, a former Rothschild home now used as an official residence for visiting chiefs of state.
Relations between Giscard and Sadat, once diplomatic allies and personal friends, cooled after France refused to support Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem and the Camp David agreements.
The two men now seem to have moved closer to each other, France is prepared to accept the Camp David agreements as a “possible” basis for a global peace while Sadat is “welcoming” the European initiative engineered by the French President.
French oppostion parties hinted that Giscard’s State welcome was also motivated by electoral conserations. A Jewish organization, “Jewish Renewal,” accused him outright of trying to lobby for the Jewish vote. Sadat is highly popular both with the general public and with the Jewish community which, by and large, sees him as the man who brought about Egyptian-Israeli peace.
A delegation representing the Representative Council of Major Jewish Organizations in France (CRIF), led by its chairman, Baron Alain de Rothschild, and including Chief Rabbi Rene Sirat is due to meet Sadat tomorrow morning.
French and European diplomatic sources said that his meetings in Paris and Luxembourg have been “fruitful” and that both van der Klaauw and Commision chairman Gaston Thorn were “deeply impressed with his arguments.” Thorn had conducted on behalf of the 10 European Economic Community member states a study tour of the Middle East and van der Klaauw has now taken over that mission.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
