Israel Gives Kissinger a Map of Disengagement Lines on Golan

Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger flew to Damascus this morning with a new Israeli disengagement map reportedly containing territorial concessions not previously offered. The new map was approved at a special session of the care-taker Cabinet lasting more than three hours last night which followed a working session of the Israeli and American negotiating teams and a private meeting between Premier Golda Meir and Kissinger.

While no official disclosures have been made it was reliably learned that the Israeli plan Kissinger is conveying to Syrian President Hafez Assad goes a considerable way toward meeting Syrian territorial demands while safeguarding the security of Israeli settlements on the Golan Heights. According to the plan, Israel would relinquish the largest portion of Kuneitra, the biggest township on the Golan Heights which it captured in the 1967 war, but would retain the town’s eastern precincts including a strategic road junction vital to the protection of the Golan settlements.

Israel would also withdraw from the villages of Amadiyeh, north of Kuneitra, and Surman, to the south, both scenes of heavy fighting in the Six-Day War. But Israel would retain the three strategic hills west of Kuneitra which it considers vital to the defense of the Golan Heights. According to the reported new map. the areas Israel evacuates inside the June, 1967 lines would be part of a United Nations buffer zone and not re-occupied by Syrian forces.

OFFER COMPROMISE ON BUFFER ZONE

Israel was also said to be offering a compromise on the nature of the buffer zone. Instead of a duplicate of the Sinai arrangement in which units of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) are garrisoned in a zone separating Israeli and Egyptian forces, Israel is prepared to settle for a zone patrolled by armed mobile UN forces to prevent incursions. Syria has been demanding only a UN Observer (UNTSO) force which is unarmed.

Israel is also prepared to withdraw from all Syrian territory it captured in the Yom Kippur War last Oct., but part of that, including the strategic peak of Mt. Hermon, would be under UN control. Observers said that if disengagement is achieved it would be followed by the large scale return of Syrian civilians to the area. They estimated that 65,000 civilians would return to Kuneitra alone, a ghost town since the 1967 war.

Kissinger obtained the new Israeli map after meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in Cyprus yesterday. After meeting with Gromyko, Kissinger told reporters in Nicosia: “Russian leaders are interested in decreasing the tension in the Middle East, just as much as the U.S. We hope that this will turn out to be the case.” Israeli Information Minister Shimon Peres, who participated in the talks with the American negotiators last night, said late that Kissinger had asked Gromyko to intervene actively with the Syrians to convince them of the necessity of reaching a disengagement accord.

U.S. Ambassador-At-Large Robert J, McCloskey, Kissinger’s chief spokesman, would not confirm Peres’ appraisal of Kissinger’s report on his Cyprus meeting. But he agreed with the Israeli minister that Israel has presented a new plan for consideration by Damascus. “I don’t want to leave you with the impression that this is Israel’s final position,” McCloskey said. “There is a possibility of an agreement, but no certainty.” Observers here believe that the fate of Kissinger’s current disengagement mission will be determined within the next 48 hours. Kissinger returned to Israel late tonight. (See P. 3 for story.)