Prime Minister Mustapha Khalil of Egypt told an Israeli correspondent in Cairo last night that he rejected Israel’s protest over a statement he made concerning the Golan Heights because it was based on wire service reports that did not present his remarks accurately.
Israel fired off sharp protests late yesterday to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in connection with Khalil’s alleged assertion that if Syria attempted to regain the Golan Heights, Egypt would be justified in aiding the Syrians because they would be waging a war of self-defense.
“These statements contravene the spirit and letter of the peace treaty just signed by Egypt and Israel,” the messages to Sadat and Vance reportedly stated. According to Maariv correspondent Tamar Golan, who is in Cairo, Khalil said his statement on the Golan Heights contained “nothing new in comparison to the things I said to Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and to American Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and to Alfred Atherton,” President Carter’s special Ambassador to the Middle East. Khalil added that Israel’s understanding of his statement is ### on an Inexact text provided by the wire services, Golan reported.
But, according to the correspondent, Khalil also said the “Camp David accords obligate Israel to agree in principle to the same standards in the Golan (Heights) which were applied in Sinai. That is, complete withdrawal, Syrian sovereignty in the Golan, the dismantling of settlements, and the implementation of security arrangements for Israel.” He said he saw no reason to postpone the exchange of treaty ratification documents between Egypt and Israel, scheduled to take place in ceremonies in Sinai next Monday.
Israel’s protests were sent to Sadat by Premier Menachem Begin and by Dayan to Vance. Israel also took issue with Khalil’s call on the Arab states to use their oil weapons to force the U.S. to cause Israel to withdraw from all occupied Arab territories and with a statement by Egyptian Foreign Minister Boutros Ghali that Egypt could aid the Palestine Liberation Organization regardless of its treaty with Israel because the PLO was engaged in a “war of liberation.”
The Foreign Ministry refused to disclose the exact text of the protest messages Informed sources said they expressed the view that Khalil and Ghali had deviated from the peace treaty. Dayan’s cable to Vance reportedly dwelt on the American position as a negotiating “partner,” especially as it concerns conflicting interpretations of the treaty.
Israel reportedly stressed that one of the main achievements of the Camp David accords was the agreement to settle differences through negotiations instead of force. The peace treaty should serve as an example to other Arab countries and not other way around, the messages are believed to have said. Israel also pointed out that the Golan Heights were never discussed during the negotiations with Egypt.
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