Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s visit to Israel this week is expected to have its rough moments due to Israel’s uncompromising opposition to planned West German arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a country still technically at war with Israel.
Senior government officials and aides to the Chancellor are therefore stressing the positive aspects of Kohl’s journey–the establishment of better relations with Israel which public opinion polls say is supported by 71 percent of the population in the Federal Republic.
Kohl will arrive in Jerusalem tomorrow and his official round of talks begin Tuesday. He leaves for home next Sunday, January 30. The Chancellor will be accompanied by Deputy Foreign Minister Alois Mertes, Wemer Nachmann, chairman of the Jewish community in West Germany, Erik Blumenfeld, president of the German-Israel Friendship Association, and a large retinue to aides and advisors. More than 100 German journalists will follow the Chancellor in a chartered plane, an indication of the importance attached to his trip.
BONN’S MIDEAST POLICY GUIDELINES
Bonn sees Kohl’s visit as an expression of “increased normalization” between West Germany and Israel as well as of West Germany’s fundamental interest in a Middle East peace settlement.
Government sources have reiterated Bonn’s guidelines in Mideast policy which embrace both Israel’s right to exist within secure, recognized borders and the right of the Palestinians to self-determination without recourse to violence. This is more or less the Formula of the June, 1980 Venice declaration by the heads of state of the European Economic Community (EEC).
Officials here initially under-estimated Israeli opposition to the projected Saudi arms sales. Mertes, who is regarded as a friend of Israel, said last week that Kohl will listen to the Israeli views and what he hears will be duly considered in a subsequent evaluation on Bonn’s Middle East policy.
While the decision to sell arms to Saudi Arabia is described here as irrevocable, government officials have gone out of their way to stress that West Germany has always been sympathetic to Israel’s needs in various fields. They seem to imply that Israel may be offered military hardware, too, although for the present arms sales to Israel and its contiguous neighbors are barred on the grounds that they constitute an area of tension. Kohl will be meeting with Premier Yitzhak Shamir with whom he has met before, though not in their present capacities as chiefs of government. They are expected to speak frankly. Kohl will express European concerns over the lack of progress toward a settlement in Lebanon and resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is expected to criticize Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank which Bonn sees as a damaging element in the peace process.
With respect to the arms sale issue, the Chancellor will try to convince Shamir that it will pose no threat to Israel. Government sources said Kohl cannot now go back on his promise to the Saudis and can only hope that he and Shamir will find an acceptable basis for dialogue.
An aide to Kohl said today that one of the basic principles of Bonn’s Middle East policy will remain close coordination with the U.S.
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