Dayan: Conditions Now Do Not Seem to Justify Israel’s Return to Peace Talks

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said on his arrival from the United States last night that he did not think conditions now justify Israel’s return to the Jarring peace talks. He said his visit, which included meetings with President Nixon. Defense Secretary Laird and Secretary of State Rogers in Washington last Friday, changed nothing basically insofar as Israel’s terms for resuming peace discussions are concerned. Dayan said however that he was “satisfied with the extent of understanding” in the Nixon administration of Israel’s defense needs and its willingness to extend military assistance to Israel on easy financial terms. He said he also met with understanding of Israel’s interpretation of Soviet ambitions in the Middle East and that Washington is aware that in practice the Soviet Union has identified itself fully with Egypt. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said tonight that the govern- ment is still awaiting a reply from Washington to its request for clarification of American commitments. The Defense Minister indicated that the major part of his talks in Washington was concerned with the question of Israeli arms procurement from the U.S. on a regular basis. He did not say whether President Nixon agreed to this but expressed confidence that he would keep his word on the arms flow to Israel. Remarks by Dayan on a television interview in New York indicated that he viewed American arms supplies as a “substitute” for rectification of Egyptian truce violations in the Suez Canal zone. But his appraisal of chances for Israel’s prompt return to the Jarring talks seemed to observers to be less encouraging now than it was before he went to Washington. (Diplomatic sources in Washington and at the United Nations have expressed the belief that Israel will shortly announce its intention of returning to the Jarring talks. One source said the announcement would be made next Sunday at the weekly Cabinet session. These reports were given some credence by a UN announcement that Ambassador Gunnar V. Jarring will return to UN headquarters to assist Secretary General U Thant in preparation of his report to the Security Council on the progress of the Mideast peace mission. The announcement did not give a date for Jarring’s return. Thant will deliver his report on Jan. 5.)

Dayan was unusually reticent when he met reporters at Lydda Airport last night and appeared to be playing down the importance of his visit to Washington. He told the Israel Radio correspondent that he would report “only impressions” to Premier Meir. “Any clarifications she wanted to make she made through channels other than me,” he said, adding. “I was not asked to perform any mission in Washington nor did I do so.” Dayan went to the U.S. with Mrs. Meir’s personal authority to discuss defense matters. Observers here said today that he seems to have stopped short of the limits of his authority. He was apparently under tight reins by the government not to encroach on foreign policy matters. Foreign Minister Abba Eban strongly opposed Dayan’s Washington trip when it was first announced. The feeling here is that he left Washington with the understanding that the next step in the movement to bring Israel back to the peace talks was up to President Nixon. Dayan denied here, as he did in various interviews in the U.S., that he ever proposed a mutual disengagement of Israeli and Egyptian forces in the Suez Canal zone as the basis for a new cease-fire agreement. “I have no plan for a new arrangement.” he told newsmen at the airport. But he observed that such matters are not to be discussed with the Americans but “with the side concerned,” meaning Egypt.