Israeli circles expressed satisfaction today with Joseph Sisco’s comments last week on the energy crisis. Addressing editors and broadcasters in Washington the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs said it was not in the long-range security and economic interests of the U.S. to depend on any one country or source for its energy. America has to develop its own resources, he said.
Observers here deduced from this that the U.S. administration is aware of the long-term dangers of dependence on Mideast sources and would plan to overcome them by developing local alternatives. On the other hand, Sisco seemed to imply that in the immediate future America’s mounting dependency on Arab oil was going to be a problem. Foreign Minister Abba Eban told an interviewer he thought Sisco’s remarks in general agreed with the U.S.-Israeli position against any imposed settlement. Eban said he believed the U.S. still hoped for a movement on the Egyptian side which would draw Cairo to the negotiating table – despite the disappointing outcome of Hafez Ismail’s visit to Washington and despite Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s warlike pronouncements last week.
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