Egyptian Foreign Minister Kamal Hassan Ali delivered a personal message from President Hosni Mubarak to Premier Menachem Begin yesterday, reportedly proposing that the two of them meet in the near future. The message also dealt with resumption of the autonomy talks, it was reported today.
Begin told Ali he appreciated Mubarak’s message which reportedly asserted that peace between their countries was “eternal.” Begin and the Egyptian visitor both said they hoped the autonomy talks would be resumed quickly but neither indicated progress in resolving the venue issue. Begin insists that some of the sessions be held in Jerusalem. Mubarak refuses to send the Egyptian negotiating team to the Israeli capital.
Prospects of a three-way summit-meeting between Begin, Mubarak and President Reagan in Washington later this month appeared to have dimmed. Hassan Ali told reporters after his meeting with Begin that the leaders of Israel and Egypt should hold a meeting of their own before attending a summit in Washington. But he did not suggest how such a meeting could come about, given Mubarak’s refusal to go to Jerusalem.
The Egyptian President was scheduled to visit Israel last April but the trip was called off when the Israelis made it clear he would be welcomed only in Jerusalem. Ali’s visit here yesterday had not been scheduled in advance and gave rise to speculation that Mubarak had something urgent to communicate to Begin. But the Egyptian Foreign Minister insisted that despite its hasty nature, his visit “constituted normal contact between two friendly countries.” He said Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir would pay a return visit to Cairo next August.
BURG DENIES “AGREEMENT”
Meanwhile, interior Minister Yosef Burg expressed surprise today at a report in Maariv quoting the Egyptian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Butros Ghali, as saying a “gentlemen’s agreement” existed between Egypt and Israel not to hold the autonomy talks in their respective capitals. Ghali, who heads a delegation of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party visiting Israel, met with Maariv’s editorial staff yesterday.
He suggested to Maariv that Burg, who heads Israel’s autonomy negotiating team, would confirm the existence of such a gentlemen’s agreement. But Burg said today that he knew of no such thing. He said it was unnatural to exclude Jerusalem as a venue for the talks, especially when the normalization process between Israel and Egypt was gaining momentum. According to Burg, Ghali himself suggested more than three months ago that Egypt might agree to hold the talks in Jerusalem after Israel completed its withdrawal from Sinai, which it did on April 25.
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