Sen. John Glenn of Ohio, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, denied today he had ever advocated direct United States negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
“I have not advocated negotiations with the PLO, I don’t advocate it now,” Glenn said in an interview on ABC-TV’s “This Week with David Brinkley.” He said that he has said that there was a deed for “some contact of some kind through some sources and we do have that kind of contact through a number of sources now.” He did not specify the sources.
Early last April, a week after he announced his candidacy, Glenn was quoted in a Swiss weekly, Construire, as saying that he believes the PLO should join in the Mideast peace process. According to the weekly, Glenn said in an interview with its correspondent from New York that “No permanent solution to the conflict will be possible without the participation of the PLO.”
But in a position paper published May 20 in the Near East Report, a Washington weekly on American policy in the Middle East, Glenn stated in part: “No action or policy of the United States — no matter how well conceived or intended — will automatically solve the (Mideast) crisis. Only the Middle Eastern nations themselves can and must do it …. To have peace in the Middle East the Arabs must join in the process. If any Arab nation wants peace, let it step forward. Egypt did — and Israel proved its good faith by tuming over the Sinai.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
