Big 4 Meetings on Middle East Settlement Begin, with Procedural Matters on Agenda

The Big Four began meeting today in an effort to formulate a solution to the Middle East conflict. The United States, Russia, Britain and France were expected, sources said, to lay the groundwork for further meetings by settling such matters of procedure as the frequency of future meetings, rotating chairmanship, sites, languages to be used and record-keeping. The main question was when substantive talks would begin–and what and how the issues would be dealt with.

The meetings are being held at the ambassadorial level. Participants are Charles W. Yost of the United States. Yakov Malik of the Soviet Union, Lord Caradon of Britain and Armand Berard of France. Israel has made clear to the great powers its position that it will not accept any Mideast settlement that does not take into account its security interests and rights.

The envoys conferred against a background of diplomatic activity on several fronts and military action in the Middle East, where Jordanian and Israeli troops exchanged fire south of the Sea of Galilee yesterday. (Jordan also returned yesterday the body of an Israeli Air Force pilot whose jet was shot down on March 21 while he was bombing artillery emplacements near the Allenby Bridge. Israel rejected Jordanian demands that three prisoners should be released in exchange for the body.)

In Paris yesterday, King Hussein of Jordan said, after meeting with President Charles de Gaulle, that he favored the New York talks. “I believe that the Big Four meeting will help to a very large extent, if it is successful, in terms of the coordination and the agreement that will be reached there to support the efforts of the world” as represented in the Security Council’s Nov. 22, 1967 resolution on a Mideast settlement, he said.

King Hussein will confer next week with President Nixon in Washington. He has been invited to the White House on a state visit and was expected to outline his views on a settlement and learn the U.S. position.

On the diplomatic scene, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s chief foreign affairs adviser. Dr. Mahmoud Fawzi, conferred for an hour today with Secretary of State William P. Rogers in Washington. He reportedly urged U.S. pressure on Israel for a settlement acceptable to Cairo as a condition for improved relations between Cairo and Washington. Egypt severed diplomatic relations with the U.S. during the Six-Day War. The Egyptian diplomat reportedly cautioned that time was growing short and the prospects of a renewed Mideast war were rising. Dr. Fawzi met yesterday with Joseph Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, reportedly on the resumption of diplomatic relations. He came to Washington as the personal emissary of President Nasser to attend the funeral services for former President Eisenhower. Dr. Fawzi attended a diplomatic reception at the White House Monday where he talked briefly with President Nixon and Mr. Rogers.

The official Egyptian Government spokesman, Mohammed H. el-Zayyat, reportedly said in Cairo yesterday that Egypt did not make a total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories a pre-condition of a settlement. He warned, however, that unless Israel ultimately withdrew there would be war.

Mr. el-Zayyat said today that President Nasser had ordered Egyptian troops manning the Suez Canal cease-fire line to “shoot first” at any Israeli soldiers they spotted. According to the spokesman, Col. Nasser said, “The time has passed when we disciplined any of our soldiers who saw the enemy and opened fire because we were not ready for complications. Now the picture is different. We discipline the soldier who sees the enemy and does not open fire.”

The announcement was the first official indication by Egypt that its troops are supposed to initiate clashes with Israeli forces; Israel has charged the Egyptians have been doing so all along. United Nations observers in the Suez zone reported that most of the recent artillery clashes across the canal were started by Egypt.

The Syrian Government said yesterday in Damascus that it will make the liberation of Israeli-occupied territories a principal objective and said it will cooperate toward this end in political and military action with other Arab nations. The statement of policy was published in the newspaper Al-Baath of the ruling Baathist Party.

(In Boston, the Christian Science Monitor said in an editorial today that the new Syrian strongman, Gen. Hafez al-Assad, appeared to be moving his country out of the isolation that has surrounded it since the 1967 war toward improved relations with Egypt, Jordan and Iraq which “should bolster the overall Arab political stance in the Middle East–and could be a prelude to Syrian cooperation with United Nations Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring.” It noted that the radical Baathist regime in Damascus had been at loggerheads with the Baathists running Iraq. Now, the editorial said, “there has been an almost overnight improvement in relations with Baghdad” reflected by the reported stationing of Iraqi troops in Syria to bolster Syrian forces facing Israel.)

The Cairo newspaper Al Ahram, regarded as a spokesman for Col. Nasser, said today that four major Arab guerrilla organizations have formed a unified command to coordinate action against Israel. The new group, it said, is called the Command for the Palestinian Armed Struggle. Its members were reported to be El Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Syrian-supported el-Saiqa, and the Democrat Popular Front.