A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed today that Foreign Minister Abba Eban met secretly with United Nations special envoy Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring in Zurich, Switzerland 10 days ago. He said the meeting was concerned mainly with agenda and procedural matters preparatory to the resumption of Dr. Jarring’s peace-seeking mission in the Middle East next month. The spokesman said the meeting was held secretly because Dr. Jarring did not want to have to report on it to the other parties concerned. It was understood here that he had a similar meeting in Switzerland with the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Riad.
The Washington Post disclosed the Eban-Jarring meeting yesterday in a report from its UN correspondent Robert Estabrook. Mr. Estabrook said the contents of the Soviet proposals of Dec. 30 for a Middle East settlement were presumably discussed. He said that Dr. Jarring has been using the temporary resumption of his regular post as Sweden’s Ambassador to Moscow as a cover for continuing his peace-seeking mission without attracting attention. According to Foreign Ministry sources here, Mr. Eban said he was willing to meet with Dr. Jarring anywhere when the latter officially resumed his mission but felt that New York was impractical because of its distance from the Middle East. Sources here said that Egypt would prefer New York because Dr. Jarring’s meetings would be with the permanent representatives to the UN rather than with Foreign Ministers and thereby would be “down-graded.”
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