Israel and the Soviet Union are “in the process of building a foundation of understanding,” Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens said in Cairo Wednesday after a meeting for more than three hours with his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze.
Both diplomats acknowledged that their discussion at the Soviet ambassador’s residence did not resolve the wide substantive differences between their respective countries over the Middle East peace process.
They stressed to reporters, however, that theirs is an evolving dialogue, and they pledged to continue it on the ministerial level and the level of experts.
Both ministers gave the impression that such contacts could be expected soon. But it was not immediately clear when and where Israeli and Soviet experts would meet and what their mandate might be.
Arens returned to Jerusalem after the meeting, while Shevardnadze remained in the Egyptian capital for an evening session with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat.
Moscow’s warm relations with Arafat and its insistence that the PLO have a role in the Middle East peace process is fundamentally at odds with Israel’s policy.
Arens and Shevardnadze chose not to dwell on their differences, but conveyed the sense that their talk was conducted in an atmosphere that was both businesslike and warm.
It was “an open, frank and honest dialogue,” the Soviet foreign minister said, but it would be “naive” to expect the two countries to reach agreement on all points.
INTEREST IN ISRAELI IDEAS
“Without goodwill on Israel’s part, there can be no solution of the conflict,” Shevardnadze observed. “That is one aspect of reality.”
He added, significantly, that without the Soviet Union, there could be no peace process either.
Arens reiterated Israel’s demand for direct talks with the Arabs. He cited as an example to be followed the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. The 10th anniversary of its signing in Washington will be observed on March 26.
Israeli correspondents reported from Cairo that the Soviets indicated privately that they could be flexible on their longstanding demand for an international peace conference with the participation of the PLO.
They seemed to show interest in Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s apparent readiness to accept a peace conference under the aegis of the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, the correspondents said.
They are also listening to proposals by some Israelis, notably Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, for local elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Arens and Shevardnadze met in Paris last month at an international conference on chemical weapons.
Arens was accompanied at their Cairo meeting by Deputy Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu; Yeshayahu Anug, deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry; and Arye Levin, who heads the Israeli consular delegation that has been in Moscow since last summer.
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