Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan responded today to a direct appeal from Premier Menachem Begin and agreed to join the five other members of Israel’s negotiating team in Alexandria tomorrow for their first business meeting with the Egyptian and American delegations on autonomy for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He informed the Cabinet today that he would be taking part in the talks and cancelled a press luncheon he was to have here tomorrow.
The autonomy talks opened formally in Beersheba on May 26 with the full delegations from both sides participating, except Egyptian Prime Minister Mustapha Khalil. There has been some uncertainly up to now over Dayan’s role in the talks as member of the team headed by Interior Minister Yosef Burg. Circles close to him have made no secret of the fact that he is dissatisfied with the internal guidelines” formulated by the Cabinet for the Israeli negotiations. Both Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman have protested that on a number of key issues the “guidelines” are too tough and too specific to facilitate negotiations.
YADIN OFF TO EGYPT
Meanwhile, the joint Israeli-Egyptian military committee dealing with matters related to the newly opened borders between the two countries announced that it has postponed tomorrow’s session at EJ Arish until Wednesday to enable some members who are also advisors in the autonomy talks to attend the meeting in Alexandria.
Deputy Premier Yigael Yadin flew to Cairo this morning for a week-long visit as the guest of Egypt’s Vice President Hosni Moubarak. He told reporters that he intended to discuss long-term aspects of cultural and scientific normalization in relations between Israel and Egypt with Egyptian leaders. One of the first items on his agenda will be the immediate technical issue of visas and the interchange of visits between Israeli and Egyptian delegations. Yadin, a world-renown archaeologist, will also visit Egyptian archaeological sites at the personal invitation of President Anwar Sadat. He is expected to meet with Sadat during his stay in Egypt.
Yadin was accompanied by two leading Israeli orientalists, Profs. Moshe Maoz and Menachem Milson of the Hebrew University, Yosef Abiram an expert on antiquities and Safia Assad a Druze MK and member of Yadin’s Democratic Movement faction. Yadin’s daughter, Lital, is another member of the party.
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