Foreign Minister Yigal Allon said last night that there were grounds for hope the U.S. will sell no additional arms to Egypt in the “foreseeable future” beyond the six C-130 Hercules transport planes announced by the Ford Administration. Allon expressed that view to reporters at Ben Gurion Airport when he returned from his official visits to Mexico and Central America and a one-day stopover in Washington Friday where he conferred with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. (See related stories P.2 and P. 4.)
Allon strongly denied, however, that Israel had in any way agreed or acquiesced to the sale of the C-130s to Cairo. He said they established a dangerous precedent for Israel. Premier Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset last week that his government would do its utmost to convince Washington to reconsider the C-130 deal. The Premier said, however, that Israel was less concerned with the specific item than with the precedent it established for a future arms relationship between the U.S. and Egypt.
Allon also referred to the American initiative to explore Arab attitudes toward end-of-war or non-belligerence talks as the next step in Middle East diplomacy. He said that as of his meeting with Kissinger, Washington had received no reply from the Arab states. “The ball is now in the Arabs’ court,” Allon said.
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