Foreign Minister Yigal Allon’s meeting with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger has been postponed from Jan. 9 to Jan. 15, it was announced here today. Officials attributed the one-week delay to Kissinger’s heavy work schedule and said that Allon would go to Washington after appearances in Florida and on the U.S. West Coast on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal.
(See separate story from Washington.)
Well informed sources here indicated, however, that the postponement stemmed from the fact that Kissinger’s contacts with Egyptian officials had not yet reached the point where a meeting with Allon would be productive. According to one source, Egypt has “not yet replied” to the basic Israeli proposals for a settlement which were advanced by Allon at his meeting with Kissinger in Washington last month.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned, meanwhile, that Kissinger was requesting additional and more detailed proposals from Allon for a second stage agreement with Egypt than the Foreign Minister had conveyed at their last meeting. At that time Allon reportedly spoke of a 30-50 kilometer Israeli pull-back in Sinai without drawing lines on a map. In return, the Israeli Foreign Minister was said to have demanded various concessions from Egypt, including a prolonged period during which a second stage agreement would be in effect.
QUID PRO QUO ON CONCESSIONS
Other Israeli proposals reportedly condition a new agreement on the prior fulfillment of all Egyptian undertakings contained in the first disengagement agreement signed in Jan. 1974. This apparently includes re-opening the Suez Canal and the return of the civilian population to the canal zone towns. Israel is also making certain “political” demands of Egypt such as the suspension of economic and political warfare against Israel for the duration of a second stage agreement.
High officials here have hinted that any Israel concessions involving the Abu Rodeis oil fields in Sinai would be contingent on an American undertaking with regard to Israel’s future oil supplies. The Abu Rodeis fields, captured by Israel in the Six-Day War, reportedly fill all or most of Israel’s domestic oil needs.
This matter was referred to in one paragraph of the communique issued by Premier Yitzhak Rabin and former President Nixon during Nixon’s visit to Israel last June which held out the prospects of “consultations” between the two countries. Informed sources here said that talks held so far between Israeli and American officials have been on an economic rather than political level and did not link U.S. help to ensure Israeli oil supplies with the issue of Abu Rodeis.
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