President Carter and President Anwar Sodat of Egypt opened their two days of intensive discussions at the White House today which appeared to include consideration of means to induce Israel to retreat from agreed Camp David formulas and persuade Palestinian Arabs to join the autonomy talks.
Neither the White House nor Egyptian sources were prepared to disclose how the Carter-Sodat talks proceeded. The Israel Embassy was closed for the last day of Passover and no one there was available for comment. Carter and Sodat will meet again for dinner tonight when they are expected to speak publicly for the first time on their discussions.
Sodat, on his arrival here late yesterday from Cairo, asserted that he would put the Palestinian problem “on the road to a just settlement.” He did not outline how he would recommend going about this. There was speculation in some quarters that Sadat will ask Carter to present Premier Menachem Begin of Israel, who arrives here next week, with a proposal that “a security committee” be established to determine Israel’s security requirements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for autonomy for the inhabitants of those areas in line with Sadat’s views.
The purpose would be, according to these quarters, to induce Israel to relent on its position in opposition to Sadat’s recommendations which it sees as leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Movement in the Israeli-Egyptian-American autonomy talks is considered essential by the Carter Administration to enable a postponement of the May 26 target date for a decision on autonomy and there-by preserve the Camp David process and Carter’s foremost achievement in foreign policy.
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