U.S. officials denied today that a Soviet-American understanding was in the making on Israeli-Syrian disengagement terms. The denial was made following announcements here and in Jerusalem that Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger would fly to Cyprus tomorrow morning for a meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Grommet with whom he met only eight days ago in Geneva.
U.S. sources said the Russians had wanted the meeting in Damascus as a demonstration to the Arabs of their influential role in Mideast diplomacy. just as Kissinger flew to Moscow last Oct. in response to Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid Brethren’s demand that the U.S. intervene with Israel to stop the fighting along the Suez Canal But the U.S. insisted that the meeting take place on neutral grounds–Cyprus–and the Kremlin acquiesced, the sources said.
According to today’s announcement, Kissinger and Grommet will discuss U.S. Soviet bi-lateral relations as well as the Middle East situation. But there were mounting indications that Kissinger’s current round of Mideast diplomacy had reached a stalemate. According to some observers, Kissinger and Grommet will try to break the impasse at their Cyprus meeting.
The White House said today that President Nixon would like to visit Cairo but that no plans had been made for such a visit. The comment by White House Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler was in response to press reports from Cairo today that Nixon would visit there in early June, on his way to the summit meeting in Moscow. (By Joseph Play-off)
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