1972 MAY BE YEAR OF NEGOTIATIONS
Eban said that the possible resumption of the Jarring peace mission and the American initiative for an interim agreement to reopen the Suez Canal would have to wait until mid-January when Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring returns to New York and asks questions to which Israel will be able to formulate replies. Eban said 1972 could turn into a year of negotiations, but first the documentary, semantic and conditional obstacles to negotiations must be removed.
He said in this context that no document should be considered “holy” just because it was presented. If it creates a deadlock, he said, other ways can always be found to continue negotiations, Eban was referring to Dr. Jarring’s Feb. 8 memo asking Israel for a commitment to withdraw to its old international boundaries with Egypt which Israel has rejected. Eban stated emphatically that the armistice lines that existed before the June, 1967 war will not be considered by Israel as a final boundary.
He said that while everything may be brought up in negotiations, Israel will be less willing to relent on some issues than on others. Asked specifically about the Golan Heights, Eban noted that Syria has not accepted the Security Council’s Resolution 242 or even the concept of negotiations and peace with Israel. No one believes, he said, that the situation on the Golan Heights will be restored to what it was before the Six-Day War.
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