Eec Members Rebuff French Move to Include PLO in Geneva Talks

–A French attempt to gain West European support for the Palestine Liberation Organization was rebuffed here yesterday by other members of the European Economic Community (EEC), well informed sources said today.

The EEC Foreign Ministers, under the chairmanship of Britain’s Anthony Crosland, refused to endorse a French proposal that the Community urge an early recall of the Geneva conference and the presence there of the PLO. Instead, the Foreign Ministers issued only a brief and general statement referring to the high priority to be given to the Middle East conflict and the need to take advantage of the present “favorable atmosphere” there. Israeli circles here welcomed the outcome of the meeting, which ended last night despite originally being planned as a two-day affair. They saw it as a victory for the British policy of giving precedence to American peace-making efforts in the Middle East.

The circles pointed out today that Britain is certainly not committed to a Palestinian state or to PLO representation of Palestinian interests. Among the nine EEC countries, analysts believe Britain is closest to Israel in wanting a Palestinian settlement within a Jordanian framework.

AT ODDS WITH ARABS’ ATTEMPT

The EEC Foreign Ministers are also understood to have discussed the next committee meeting of the European-Arab dialogue due to be held in Tunis Feb. 10. Crosland told the press last night that the Euro-Arab dialogue should be mainly concerned with economic and commercial cooperation. He regarded any discussion of the Geneva conference at the Tunis meeting as “out of place”.

This is almost completely at odds with the Arab attempt to make the dialogue a political forum and to give the PLO national status in it. At the last meeting in Luxembourg. Palestinians were allowed to take part only as members of the general Arab delegation and it is expected that this will again happen in Tunis.

However, the European side will try to limit itself to two previous statements on the Middle East. These are the EEC Foreign Ministers’ Luxembourg Declaration of Nov. 6, 1973 and the Dutch delegate’s statement to the 1976 United Nations General Assembly.

The 1973 Luxembourg Declaration, made at the height of the Arab oil pressures after the Yom Kippur War, spoke of the need for Israel “to end the territorial occupation which it has maintained since the conflict of 1967,” and of “application of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.”

Holland’s UN statement, made on behalf of the entire EEC, spoke of “the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, in particular their right to the effective expression of their national identity which could involve a territorial basis in the framework of a negotiated settlement.”