Behind the Headlines What’s Ahead in Mideast Talks?

Israel “has a solid basis for believing” that Egypt saw in its initial proposals for a second-stage settlement an opening, at least, for a negotiation. A top source in Jerusalem gave this assessment yesterday, exactly a week before Foreign Minister Yigal Allon’s scheduled meeting in Washington with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. The source conceded that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had rejected the Israeli proposals–submitted by Allon at his previous visit to Washington last month–but continued that subsequent contacts and subsequent public statements by Sadat and other Egyptian officials had shown that Egypt was still interested in a second-stage negotiation, and moreover did not see the Israeli proposals as barring the way to such a negotiation.

The Israeli proposals concerned the “principles” of a settlement. Without detailing a map they envisioned a 30-50 kilometer pullback, with depth and other factors varying in accordance with proferred Egyptian concessions.

The top source said that Allon on his visit next week would not veer from principles to specific practicalities of a settlement, but would rather concentrate on discussing with Kissinger the “modalities “–time, place and rank–of actual negotiations. The Secretary, the source said, had not yet indicated to Israel that he planned to visit the area next month although such a visit could not be ruled out. Egypt might prefer to dispatch Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy to Washington first, and might also prefer military men to do the actual negotiating, since Egypt’s policy is to vest the forthcoming talks with a military character.

MAP-MAKING TIME NOT RIPE

Allon believes, the source said, that the time is still not ripe for actual map-making. The Foreign Minister suggested to the Cabinet last Sunday that it postpone a full-fledged political discussion until after his return–and he won the majority’s approval when his suggestion was put to the vote. Apart from “modalities,” the Allon-Kissinger talks are expected to center on reviewing recent developments linked to the Mideast situation–and principally the postponement of the visit to Egypt by Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev.

The assessment in Jerusalem is that while Brezhnev is apparently ill, his illness, alone cannot explain the postponement, and that it was probably the result of very real political differences with Egypt. Sadat is seeking to keep both the Soviet and the American option open and there fore refused the Russian’s demand that he turn his back on Kissinger and join Syria in calling for the immediate reconvening of the Geneva conference.

The Soviets for their part seem to have come to the conclusion that a second-stage settlement is pretty much in the cards–no matter how they try to stop it–so that they might as well give up trying to stop it and rather hold their diplomatic hardware demarche until a later, post-second-stage period, in which, they hope, U.S.-Egyptian cooperation and friendship will come unstuck over further political progress in Sinai.

The Allon-Kissinger survey would probably also take in, according to the top source, the recent Egypt-Syria-Jordan-PLO parley in Cairo where Egypt cleverly maneuvered so that the main issue now on the Mideast agenda–its impending negotiation with Israel–was skirted, while the conference concentrated on the ultimately fruitless task of bringing about a PLO-Jordanian reconciliation.

Egypt’s action at the conference–in the knowledge that Syria and the PLO oppose further separate Egypt-Israel talks–is seen here as a further sign of Sadat’s determination to go ahead on the Kissinger-orchestrated second-stage negotiation.

POSSIBLE REVIEW OF IRAN’S, SAUDI’S ROLE

The high source also noted–as a subject for possible review between Allon and Kissinger–the Iranian and Saudi Arabian role, probably encouraged by Washington, in toughening Sadat’s resistance to the Soviet’s demands. Latterly the two oil giants, united in their hostility to the Soviets if in little else, had even begun wooing Syria away from the constricting Soviet embrace, Syria, the source said, basing himself on assessments, had not met with Lebanese agreement in its attempt to introduce units of its regular army into southern, Lebanon to aid and advise the terrorists in the on going mini-war against Israel.

At the meeting Tuesday between Syrian President Hafez Assad and Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh in the Lebanese resort town of Shtura, the Lebanese leader seemed to have politely declined the Syrian offer of men, while possibly agreeing though to a supply of weaponry by Syria to the terror units the source said. Israel had warned Lebanon, through American good offices and other channels, as well as through the public warning delivered this week by Defense Minister Shimon Peres, that it would view seriously the stationing of Syrian troops on Lebanese soil.

The top source stressed that Israel’s original 30-50 kilometer proposal had specifically excluded Abu Rodeis and the Mitla Pass from the projected pullback. This position had not changed, despite the welter of rumors from both Washington and Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the source indicated that there was still some “give” in the Israeli position which would be translated into practical terms once the real talks got underway and if the Egyptian side proved ready for the political concessions, and for the type and duration of settlement that Israel had in mind.