Premier Menachem Begin and Foreign Minister Kamal Hassan Ali of Egypt appeared optimistic today that a breakthrough will be achieved in the autonomy negotiations now once more under way between Israel and Egypt. Ali said, after meeting with Begin this morning, that the talks will shift to the ministerial level in Cairo next week. They opened in Tel Aviv at the sub-ministerial, technical level last week.
Ali said the purpose of the higher level negotiations will be to reach agreement within a short time, although no target date has been set. Begin told reporters that Israel and Egypt would make a joint effort to bring the talks to a successful conclusion.
According to Begin, the key element is agreement on the election procedures, the functions and the number of members of the administrative council which will be the self-governing body on the West Bank and Gaza Strip under the autonomy plan. He said the talks opening in Cairo next week will concentrate on that issue. (Reaction in Washington, P.3.)
ISRAEL WOULD ALTER ITS PRESENCE
Begin promised that once an agreement is reached, Israel would alter its presence in the occupied territories in conformity with the terms of the Camp David accords. Israel will withdraw the Military Government and will carry out “a withdrawal” of military forces.
The remaining forces will be re-deployed to “specified security locations,” Begin said, employing the phraseology of the Camp David agreement. He said Israel was willing to draw a map denoting those locations. “It was my impression that the idea was received (by the Egyptians) as a basis for consideration and discussion,” Begin said.
He recalled that the late President Anwar Sadat had told him, at their last meeting in Alexandria in August, that every effort should be made to conclude the autonomy negotiations by the end of this year.
Israel will be represented in Cairo next week by Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Interior Minister Yosef Burg.
The Egyptian delegation will consist of Hassan Ali, Minister of State Butros Ghali, and a third minister not yet identified. Begin said he has informed U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis of the decision to continue the talks in Cairo next week so that arrangements can be made for an American delegation to participate.
Lewis and Alfred Atherton, the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, represented Washington when the autonomy talks resumed last month after being in suspension for more than a year. But the Reagan Administration has not appointed a special representative to the talks, as
the Carter Administration had done in the person of Sol Linowitz.
MUBARAK INVITED TO JERUSALEM
Begin also announced that he invited President Hosni Mubarak to visit Jerusalem. He and Mubarak are expected to meet before the Egyptian President goes to Washington late this year or early in 1982 for his first meeting with American officials since he succeeded Sadat.
Meanwhile, an Israeli delegation headed by Minister of Tourism Avraham Sharir has been in Egypt for the past several days to work out agreements on the normalization of tourist traffic between the two countries. Begin said those talks were “successful” and that full agreement had been reached. Earlier reports said, however, that Sharir was encountering some hard bargaining by the Egyptians and was disappointed by the terms they demanded.
But Rafi Farber, Director General of the Ministry of Tourism, said in a telephone interview from Cairo today that reports in the Israeli press of negotiating difficulties and internal conflicts in the Israeli delegation were unfounded.
According to Farber, agreement was reached to open a direct bus line between Cairo and Tel Aviv and for each country to open a tourist office in the other. He conceded that there were still differences over Egyptian visa regulations for Israeli tourists visiting Sinai.
Before meeting with Begin today, Hassan Ali visited President Yitzhak Navon with a message of thanks from Mubarak for Navon’s condolences to him on the death of Sadat. The Egyptian Foreign Minister confirmed that President and Mrs. Navon will visit Egypt at the end of the 40 day mourning period for Sadat.
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.
