Arab Diplomatic Reaction at UN Lukewarm; Hopes for Jarring Peace Mission Buoyed

Diplomatic reaction here to Secretary of State Rogers’ announcement this morning that the United States has taken a new initiative toward peace In the Middle East was sparse. Many ranking UN diplomats, like Israel’s Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, were en route to San Francisco for celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter. Mr. Rogers gave no details of his proposals and what reaction there was here concerned unconfirmed reports from abroad of what purported to be the American plan. But Arab sources here indicated that they were neither enthusiastic over Mr. Rogers’ announcement nor totally dissatisfied with it. An Egyptian diplomat said. “If Mr. Rogers had coupled this exercise with the announcement of any more, even limited, plane shipments to Israel, We would not even have looked at his proposals.” Commenting on reports from Beirut and Paris that the Rogers’ plan contemplated a demilitarized zone between Israeli and Egyptian forces along the Suez Canal, he said “one thing that is bound to be rejected” Is a pull-back. He took the position that Egypt could not be asked to evacuate its own territory and that it was unrealistic to expect Israel to abandon fortifications in which it has already invested millions of dollars.

Hopes for the reactivation of Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring’s peace mission were buoyed here after last night’s Big Four meeting. The French Ambassador, Jacques Kosciusko-Morizet said the “impasse” had been broken by “a certain acceleration” of progress, although the U.S. initiative was not taken up at the meeting. A U.S. State Department spokesman said today that the Big Four–U.S., Soviet Russia, Britain and France–meetings represented a “holding action” pending the success or failure of the latest American initiative. The spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that today’s statement by Secretary Rogers “makes it essential that they continue meeting.” He said the success of the U.S. proposals would facilitate Big Four agreement on a progress memo and would enable them, after months of fruitless negotiation, to have a set of written guidelines to present to Secretary General U Thant as the basis for resuming the stalled Jarring mission.