Carter: Autonomy Talks Will Be Resumed in a Few Weeks; Summit Meeting Due Later This Year

President Carter said today that Israel and Egypt probably will reconvene within the next few weeks to hold talks on Palestinian autonomy and “there will be a summit later this year. “A three-way summit between Carter, Premier Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sodat of Egypt had been proposed by Sadat two weeks ago.

The optimistic statement by the President regarding the stalled autonomy talks between Egypt and Israel was mode after a telephone conversation between the President and his special Mideast envoy Sol Linawitz, who conferred with Sodat earlier today in Alexandria.

Carter gave the new timetable for Egyptian Israeli negotiations during a meeting at the White House of officials of the American federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union.

But the White House later issued an official version which quoted him as saying that Egypt and Israel “will recommence the negotiations for peace sometime within the next few weeks, and they both approved a reconvening of the summit conference later on this year….”

The State Department said no date for resuming the negotiations was given in the Israeli-Egyptian statement because Sodat and Begin had not yet had a chance to discuss timing.

In Philadelphia, a senior White House official accompanying Carter on an election campaign visit said a summit meeting of Carter and the leaders of Egypt and Israel would probably be held later this year, but definitely not before the Presidential election in November.

The official said Linowitz would issue a statement in Alexandria today saying that Egypt and Israel had agreed to resume autonomy negotiations, probably within a few weeks. Linowitz said on arrival in Alexandria he had brought new ideas. from his meetings with Begin and other Israeli leaders. He gave no details.