At least two lengthy meetings between Premier Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt have been scheduled during the Israeli leader’s four-day visit to upper Egypt early next month. Officials said the two men would meet at Sadat’s rest home on the Nile in Aswan on the first evening of Begin’s stay, and at a hotel in Aswan on the following day. Begin’s subsequent schedule is flexible. enough to allow for an additional session should this be required, the officials noted.
Aside from his political talks — expected to focus on the autonomy negotiations but to embrace, too, a regional strategic review in light of the Iranjan crisis — the Premier will visit the Aswan high dam, the temples at Abu Simble (near the Sudanese border) and the tombs and temples of Luxor ( Valley of the Kings).
Begin and his wife Aliza and aides will be spending three full days and nights in Aswan, arriving Monday Jan. 7 and departing Thursday Jan. 10. The Premier’s program also includes attending an evening of folk dancing by local Nubian artists, and a helicopter ride with Sadat over newly developed agricultural areas bordering upon Lake Nasser (below the high dam). Some 50 Israeli journalists and 100 foreign journalists stationed here are expected to accompany the Premier on this trip.
Though the schedule is relaxed and allows for resting between sightseeing, the plane, boat and helicopter itinerary over the three days would tax the strength of a younger man. If-Begin carries it off without a hitch he can certainly demand — according to observers here — that the rumors about his ostensibly poor health should cease circulating in Jerusalem political quarters.
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