Administration Not Keen on Sadat Proposal for New Summit Conference

Amid reports that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is pushing for another summit conference in Washington on Israeli-Arab problems, President Carter and Secretary of State Edmund Muskie have been conferring with their top Middle East experts while knowledgeable sources suggest they consider the Sadat proposal is not feasible now.

The summit proposal reportedly was sent to Washington by Sadat, who suspended the autonomy talks without publicity giving reasons. He is expected to discuss them Wednesday when he addresses the Egyptian National Assembly. Latest Cairo reports here say that a reshuffle of his Cabinet is the principal reason, with Sadat himself replacing Mustapha Khalil as Prime Minister.

Khalil, who headed the Egyptian delegation to the autonomy talks, submitted his resignation and that of his Cabinet today. He told reporters in Cairo that this would allow Sadat to make any new changes. He said he would be ready to serve in any position Sadat might ask him to fill. Asked about the status of the autonomy talks, Khalil said, “It all depends on the instructions of President Sadat.”

Career and Muskie have been conferring with their top Middle East experts this weekend on means to have the autonomy resumed. Muskie met yesterday at the State Department with Ambassador Sol Linowitz, the President’s autonomy negotiator, and Alfred Atherton and Samuel Lewis, ambassadors to Egypt and Israel, respectively. Today, the President Muskie and Linowitz met for an hour at the While House.

According to sources, the President opposes a summit conference, not primarily because of the Presidential election, as some media are saying, but because he does not want to become entangled in this issue again now and prefers that the designated negotiators continue their work under the Camp David formulas.

NO CRISIS IN AUTONOMY TALKS

Atherton and Lewis were summoned to Washington to confer with Muskie not because of a crisis in the autonomy talks, the sources said, but rather to update Muskie in his preparations for talks with European statesmen in Brussels, where NATO meets tomorrow, and later this week in Vienna where Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and others will be present to mark Austria’s 25th anniversary of independence.

British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington is reported as not having convinced the White House or the State Department that the U.S. should go along with an idea he and others in Europe are advising — a conference to find ways of causing israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and satisfying the Palestinian Arabs with “self-determination.” Alterations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, the basis of the Camp David formulas, is a course Carrington advocated in his visit here last week.

The Carter Administration responded to Carrington’s overtures, according to sources here, that the Camp David formulas form the only tangible process for Arab-Israeli negotiations and the U.S. is not deviating from them for the time being. “Lord Carrington expounded theories and received responses,” a well-placed source said. “The Camp David process is the only thing we have going, so don’t kill it,” he said the British diplomat was told in effect.