Preparing to Implement Peace Treaty

Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan has ordered his Director General, Yosef Ciechanover, to cancel a scheduled trip to Latin America and Europe and return to Jerusalem at once to take over the Ministry’s work in connection with the implementation of the peace treaty with Egypt, formally ratified yesterday at Umm Hashiba.

The Ministry has set up a special department which will deal with the civilian political aspects of the normalization process, such as border crossings, visas, tourism and trade. Last Sunday, Premier Menachem Begin told the Cabinet he had decided to give the foreign Ministry overall responsibility for the implementation of the peace.

An interdepartmental committee under Begin’s own Director General, Elianu Ben-Elissar, is to present its recommendations to Dayan.The Ben-Elissar committee is studying economic, trade, tourism and cultural aspects of the normalization process.

LINKS WITH EGYPT

Meanwhile, direct telephone and telex links with Egypt are expected to be established following the scheduled summit meeting between Begin and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in EI Arish and Beersheba May 26. This was disclosed by high officials here. They said Egypt had indicated in prior contacts that it was prepared for this sort of speeding-up of the nine-month normalization process laid down in the peace treaty’s annex.

But Egypt had made it known that it would not want to rush ahead with a full and unlimited opening of borders that would trigger a free flow of tourists in Both directions. Thus, the planned Sadat-Begin “proclamation of open borders,” due to take place at their May summit, would result in restricted exchanges, at first, of cultural and professional groups. The full freedom of movement envisaged under the treaty is expected to come into effect only after the interim Sinai pullbock, nine months hence, as stipulated in the treaty annex.