Teams of officials from the Tourism and Trade Ministry, the Transport Ministry and El A1 were hard at work this morning at the Prime Ministers Office preparing for negotiations with Egypt in their various fields in the days ahead.
Israel and Egypt have resolved to conclude three major bilateral agreements — trade, culture, and civil aviation — within the next six weeks. Negotiations are to start immediately in several committees. Top priority will be given to the aviation agreement. Israeli officials say they hope to see E1 A1 flying to Cairo within a month.
The decision to speed up the normalization process was taken in principle during the Sadat-Begin Aswan summit meeting last month and was reaffirmed two weeks later when Defense Minister Ezer Weizman met with President Anwar Sadat in Cairo.
Over the weekend a group of sick top Defense and Foreign Ministry officials, three from each side, began to translate the decision into action. Meeting in Cairo, Gen. Avraham Tamir, who is Weizman’s top planning aide, Premier Menachem Begin’s military secretary Gen. Ephraim Poran, and Foreign Ministry aide Elyakim Rubinstein met with an Egyptian team consisting of Gen. Labib Shurab, Brig. Mohsen Hamdi and Ambassador Taha Moghdoub. They mapped out a time-table of intensive negotiations by specialized working groups over the coming weeks.
The aviation working group is expected to begin its deliberations this week. Begin revealed last month that Egypt is planning to set up a second national carrier to fly the Cairo-Tel Aviv route.
BUSINESS-LIKE EFFICIENCY NOTED
The Tamir team reported a new sense of business efficiency in the Egyptian government’s attitude
Homdi and Maghdoub are due. in Israel Wednesday to continue the discussions with the Israeli group led by Tamil. Together, this team will comprise a joint coordination committee to supervise the work of the various specialist committees. If the accords are concluded in six weeks, it would represent a significant advance in the schedule laid out by the third protocol of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
The treaty required that negotiations on the trade, aviation and culture accords begin before July 2, 1980 it set no target date for the conclusion of the accords, and Egyptian officials had indicated in the past that there would be an unstated but nevertheless real “linkage” between the normalization negotiations and progress on the Palestinian autonomy. Now. however, under direct orders from Sadat, that policy line appears to have been dropped.
PREPARATIONS FOR DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
Preparations are going ahead meanwhile, for the opening of diplomatic relations. An Israeli advance party is hard at work in Cairo preparing the eight-room house in the fashionable Dokki district where Israel finally decided to locate the temporary premises of its Embassy.
Tamir and Poran reported to Begin and Weizman yesterday that they were pleased with the fight security measures the Egyptians had already installed around the house. An Egyptian delegation arrived in Tel Aviv today to find and furnish premises for Egypt’s Embassy and staff residences. The actual openings of the two embassies is now set for Feb. 15, and the two Ambassadors will take their posts on Feb. 26.
Meanwhile, another busload of American visitors, members of the Israel Bonds Prime Ministers conference, entered Egypt at noon today via El Arish. The group plans to stay in Cairo for eight days. At the same time the Board of Governors of the American Jewish Committee is presently holding working sessions in Cairo and is scheduled to cross over into Israel at the end of the week.
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