Israel’s response to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s proposal for a new summit meeting on the autonomy talks after the U.S. Presidential election has been drafted by Premier Menachem Begin and top ministers. The 15-page reply, which is due to be submitted tomorrow to Egyptian officials by Israel’s Ambassador in Cairo, Eliahu Ben Elissar, does not reject altogether the idea of a summit meeting between Sadat, Begin and President Carter. The response does, however, stress that the focus should be on resuming the autonomy talks.
Begin, in the response, stresses once again that the responsibility for the suspension of the autonomy talks lies with Egypt. He rejects Sadat’s allegations that Israel is the one that has violated the Camp David agreement and has placed obstacles on the rood to peace by the law proclaiming united Jerusalem the capital of Israel and by the Jewish settlements on the West Bank. The response was approved today by the ministerial committee for the autonomy talks.
SAYS EGYPTIAN CARTOONS DO NOT REFLECT POLICY
Meanwhile, Egypt’s Ambassador to Israel, Sood Mortoda, said today that the anti-Begin and anti-Israel cartoons appearing in the Egyptian newspaper, At Gumhouriya, do not reflect the official position of the Egyptian government nor public opinion in Egypt. However, the envoy added that the public in Egypt is “not year happy” with the deterioration of the relations between the two countries and the suspension of the autonomy talks.
Mortoda, who was on a tour of bus facilities in Tel Aviv, said that the cartoons, which keep reappearing despite Israeli protests, reflect only the opinion of the paper’s chief editor and the cartoonist. “We do not approve of those caricatures,” Mortoda said. “We don’t think this is the right way to deal with a political conflict.” Asked if the Egyptian government intended to do anything about it, he said: “The press, you know, in Egypt expresses its own point of view.”
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