The United States has “no position” on whether the Palestinians should or should not be represented at the Geneva peace conference on the Middle East, the State Department said today. “There has been no political contact whatsoever with the Palestinians” on the part of the U.S., Department spokesman Robert Anderson told newsmen at today’s press briefing. He said he was unaware of any contacts through a third party. He denied point blank, reports that U.S. Undersecretary of State Joseph J. Sisco. who was a member of Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s party in the Middle East disengagement negotiations last month, had met with Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yassir Arafat.
Discussing the possibility of Palestinian representation when the Geneva conference resumes, possibly within six weeks, Anderson indicated that was a matter for the Palestinians and other Arabs to decide. He quoted President Anwar Sadat of Egypt as saying that the question must be decided “among ourselves.” meaning between the Arab countries and “after that we will approach the superpowers.”
Earlier, the State Department had refused to confirm a report from Cairo that Sadat and Kissinger had agreed at their meeting in Cairo last Thursday that PLO representatives would participate in Geneva. Anderson told newsmen last Friday that he had not heard of such an agreement.
The question of Palestinian participation in the Geneva talks when they resume looms as one of the major problems to be settled, now that Israel and Syria have signed a disengagement accord, informed sources here have indicated. One aspect of the problem is getting Israel to agree to participation by the PLO, an umbrella body encompassing terrorist groups which Israel has vowed never to negotiate with.
PALESTINIANS DIVIDED
The other aspect lies with the Palestinians themselves who appear to be divided over what course to follow if they are invited to Geneva and who are laying down clearly unacceptable conditions for their participation.
The Palestine National Council, a 154-member body that some Palestinians regard as their “parliament-in-exile”, in meeting in Cairo. According to reports from there today, the PLO has flatly refused to participate in the Geneva talks unless the agenda is broadened to include not only the problem of Palestinian refugees but the entire “Palestinian cause.” The group submitted a 10-point program yesterday that rejected Security Council Resolution 242 as the basis for Middle East peace talks. The resolution, adopted Nov. 22, 1967, calls on Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab territories but makes only brief reference to the Palestinian problem.
The nub of the question is whether to hold out for a solution that would, in effect require the dismantling of the Israeli State which the Palestinian hard liners demand or to go along with the more moderate elements who want to come to terms with changes in the Middle East since the 1967 war.
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