Israel and Lebanon agreed today to set up three more subcommittees to deal directly with various items on their negotiating agenda. The delegations, with the U.S. also participating, met for the second time this week, today at the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona.
At their meeting in Khalde, Lebanon Monday, the two sides established a subcommittee to deal with ending the state of war between Israel and Lebanon. At today’s session, subcommittees were set up on security arrangements, the framework for mutual relations and the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon, it was announced by Avi Pazner, spokesman for the Israeli delegation.
Pazner did not disclose the working schedules of the subcommittees. But according to reliable sources, Israeli and Lebanese delegates will be getting together on almost a daily basis from now or instead of the earlier format of meetings twice a week.
U.S. special Ambassador Philip Habib remained in Jerusalem, meanwhile, to continue his parallel talks with a high level Israeli negotiating team consisting at the moment of Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and his senior aides. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, another member, is on an official visit to Zaire.
FAIL TO RECONCILE SERIOUS DIFFERENCES
Habib is dealing with essentially the same issues as are being taken up at the Khalde and Kiryat Shmona meetings. But so far he has apparently failed to reconcile the serious differences between Israel and Lebanon over the proposed security zone in south Lebanon. The Lebanese object to Israel’s insistence that early warning stations there be manned exclusively by Israeli soldiers and that Israel’s main ally, Maj. Saad Haddad, be assured of a role in policing the zone. Haddad is considered a renegade in Beirut.
Shamir yesterday categorically rejected a proposal attributed to Habib that American personnel could man the advance warning outposts. Israel is also complaining that the U.S. backs the Lebanese in their dispute with Israel over the nature and extent of normalization. Lebanon is reluctant to agree to provisions that would mean extensive exchanges of people between the two countries.
U.S. sources have refused to comment on any developments, which is usually the case when Habib is in the midst of negotiations.
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