Robert S. Strauss, President Carter’s newly appointed ambassador-at-large to the Israeli-Egyptian talks on Palestinian autonomy, will join those negotiations in late June rather than in August as he had previously indicated. He explained to reporters at a State Department news conference yesterday that he was advancing his timetable because of “negative trends” in the region.
He listed these as Arab hostility toward Egypt that was “more intense than I thought it would be,” the rising incidence of Palestinian terrorism against Israel and Israel’s continuing establishment of settlements on the West Bank.
Strauss, who is going to China next week in his capacity as the President’s special trade negotiator will not be present at the summit meeting between Premier Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt at EI Arish in Sinai next week, which will formally open the next phase of Israeli-Egyptian talks. He will be represented there, however, by his deputy, James F. Leonard Jr., who will accompany Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to EI Arish and remain in the region for a time, Strauss said.
EXPECTS ‘EXTREME POSITIONS’
Strauss said he expected the Israelis and Egyptians to lay down “some pretty extreme positions” at the start of their talks on the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But he said he would allow the two parties to negotiate on all possibilities for a settlement before the U.S. advances ideas of its own. “When the time comes for us to assume a for more active role,” Strauss said he would serve as “a strong negotiator, an advocate of positions.”
“We’re going to be a full partner in every respect….In form and substance, “he told the reporters. “I am an activist. I have a high energy level. I’m in the middle of things even if I belong there or not I want to be there, I want to start playing an active, a very dominant controlling role, if you will, very shortly, in determining what our posture is.”
Strauss said that he felt that the next phase of Israeli-Egyptian talks offer “a fresh beginning. I feel it is more of a political negotiation than I earlier thought,” he said.
U.S. MILITARY DELEGATION IN CAIRO
The State Department confirmed, meanwhile, that a high level American military delegation was due to arrive in Cairo today for talks with Egyptian defense officials on American arms sales to Egypt. The delegation is headed by Erich Von Marbod, Deputy Director of the Defense Department’s Defense Security Assistance Agency.
An earlier report from Cairo said the talks were part of a series of meetings between Egypt and the U.S. to determine how Egypt will utilize the $1.5 billion in military credits granted it by Washington. According to the semi-official Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram, the U.S. will provide Egypt with Phantom jet fighters, air defense missiles, armored troop carriers, electronic equipment and naval units.
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