Joseph J. Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, said today that the US effort to bring about an Arab-Israel agreement for reopening the Suez Canal is "largely in temporary suspension" but that the "door still remains open regardless of all the difficulties." Sisco told a national foreign policy conference at the State Department for leaders in higher education that the American striving to reopen the canal has not become a "lost opportunity."
A deep sense of frustration has come over Egypt because of Its inability to regain the Sinai but, Sisco said, Cairo has "a realistic appreciation that the exercise of the military option is not in the interest of Arabs or Israelis and carries with it a serious risk of major power involvement." The USSR and the US, he said in responding to a question, are both interested in the maintenance of the cease-fire but he doubted whether their long-range interests were similar.
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