Yosef Burg, Israel’s Interior Minister, who is also the head of the Israeli negotiating team on autonomy, warned today that anti-Israeli resolutions at the United Nations could hamper progress in the upcoming West Bank and Gaza Strip autonomy negotiations.
Speaking at a press conference at the Israeli Consulate here, Burg said that anti-Israel resolutions, either by the Security Council or the General Assembly “harden the Egyptian position” in the negotiations with Israel and the United States. He said that Egypt “after all is part of the Arab world” and therefore is likely to stiffen its attitude in the wake of UN resolutions hitting the Jewish State.
The Israeli Minister was here back from Washington where an agreement was reached last Thursday between Israel, Egypt and the United States that the autonomy negotiations will resume probably July 10 in Cairo. Burg stressed that this time no target date for the conclusion of talks was set. “We do not have a target date, we have a target” to complete the negotiations successfully, he said.
Asked to assess the chances for progress in the autonomy negotiations Burg said he and the government of Israel would not have invested almost one year for the talks had they not believed in the chance for success:
He termed the prospect for the current talks as having a “fair chance” to succeed. He said the result of the autonomy talks should not be connected in any way to a target date or the upcoming U.S. Presidential election in November. He said Israel is interested in concluding the autonomy talks as quickly as possible but not under the “ultimatum” of a target date.
In the course of the press conference Burg was asked for his view on last week’s petition by prominent American Jewish figures criticising Premier Menachem Begin’s “territorial policy.” He replied that he did not come to the U.S. to “give advice” to American Jews but, he added, the criticism was a major news item that appeared in “big bold letters” in the Egyptian press. “This in itself should serve as a warning” to the signatories of the petition, he said, adding: “They should think about the results before signing.”
He also said, with obvious sarcasm, that the issuance of the petition was “perfect timing,” noting that it coincided with Begin’s hospitalization, the UN Security Council resolution on Jerusalem and the meeting in Washington concerning the resumption of the autonomy talks.
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