Rogers-riad-gromyko Talks Show Hardening of Positions; U.S. Firm on ‘rectification’

A flurry of diplomatic talks crucial to the fate of the stalled Jarring peace negotiations and the Suez cease-fire due to expire Nov. 5 opened here over the week-end with positions hardened on all sides. Secretary of State William P. Rogers met separately with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad, of Egypt in what observers described as a last ditch effort to save his Mideast peace initiative of last spring. But the U.S. is standing firm on its demand for a “rectification” of the alleged violations of the standstill phase of the cease-fire by Egypt with Soviet backing. The U.S. maintains that the Jarring talks cannot get underway again unless confidence is restored in Arab and Soviet intentions. Washington’s “get tough” policy has reportedly encountered only stubborn insistence by the Russians that no violations occurred and that in any event the Soviet Union was not a party to the cease-fire and is not responsible. Mr. Gromyko reportedly rebuffed the U.S. Secretary of State on rectification and was non-committal on extension of the cease-fire beyond Nov. 5. Mr. Rogers also reportedly made no headway, during a four hour dinner meeting with the Soviet diplomat at the Russian UN Mission Friday night, in his efforts to head off Soviet all-out support for Egypt in a new Mideast debate scheduled to open at the General Assembly Oct. 26.

No more promising results emerged from Mr. Rogers’ meeting with Foreign Minister Riad late last Thursday, diplomatic sources said. The Egyptian official launched into a bitter attack on the U.S. and Israel when he addressed the General Assembly Friday and entered into an acrimonious exchange with U.S. Ambassador Charles Yost and Ambassador Yosef Tekoah of Israel. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Gromyko are scheduled to meet again tomorrow night. Observers here believe that the issues of peace talks or resumed warfare in the Mideast will be settled during the next ten days as diplomats congregate here for the 25th anniversary session of the UN. American diplomats made no effort to conceal their disappointment over the failure so far to end the impasse. The U.S. is believed willing to settle for considerably less than Israel’s demands for total withdrawal of all Soviet missiles allegedly introduced into the truce zone since the cease-fire went into effect Aug. 7. The U.S. has carefully refrained from defining publicly what it means by “rectification” while Israel has made it plain that it insists on absolute restoration of the Aug. 7 status quo ante. So far, however, Israel and the U.S. are in close accord on the premise that the Jarring talks are doomed as long as an atmosphere of mistrust prevails over the missiles. Israel and the U.S. are also agreed that the forthcoming Mideast debate, placed on the General Assembly agenda at the insistence of Egypt, could do irreparable harm to the already dimmed prospects of peace.

RIAD CHARGES ISRAEL-U.S. ‘COLLUSION’; TEKOAH SAYS EGYPT’S VIOLATIONS SCUTTLE PEACE

The Egyptians are expected to seek a resolution that would modify. if not replace, the Security Council’s Resolution 242 of Nov. 22, 1967 which is accepted by all parties and is the cornerstone of the U.S. peace initiative and the Jarring talks. The Egyptians are believed to want to alter the resolution in a way that will make Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories an a priori condition of peace. A General Assembly resolution does not have the legal status to supercede a Security Council resolution. But the U.S. hopes to prevail on the Soviet Union not to support changes in Resolution 242 which is one of the few instrumentalities on which Moscow and Washington have agreed. Observers here believe the Soviet intransigence so far is calculated to impress the post-Nasser leadership of Egypt that Soviet backing of Egypt has not lagged because of Nasser’s death. Similarly, observers agree, the harsh tone of Egyptian rhetoric at the UN is intended largely for the ears of the Arab world–to prove that Egypt’s new leaders are as hard on Israel as Nasser was, if not harder. Mr. Riad was recriminatory in his speech to the General Assembly Friday. Less than 24 hours after conferring with Secretary Rogers, he accused the U.S. of having misled the late President Nasser into accepting the Aug. 7 cease-fire. He said the U.S. had promised to halt delivery of jets to Israel but had reneged on that commitment once the truce was in effect. He charged further that the Nixon administration chose to “rush into” an immediate cease-fire, allegedly to “cut short the time needed by Egypt to complete its aerial defense against Israel.

Mr. Riad charged that it was Israel, not Egypt, which had been violating the cease-fire “in collusion” with the U.S. He said the alleged violations consisted of building new fortifications on the east bank of the Suez Canal. Ambassador Yost denounced that “substance and tone” of the Egyptian charge. He denied that the U.S. had purposely undermined its own peace efforts in the Middle East and repeated U.S. complaints of Egyptian cease-fire violations. He said the violations had created a crisis of confidence which interrupted the Jarring talks. Ambassador Tekoah repeated Israel’s violation charges against Egypt and accused the Egyptian Foreign Minister of delivering “a message of abuse, distortion and blind hostility.” Mr. Tekoah declared “most emphatically” that there had been no Israeli violations of the cease-fire. He said that if Egypt was really interested in peace, it would not have refused to rectify its cease-fire violations and would not have chosen to substitute peace talks by a “tug of war in the General Assembly.” There was no report on the extent to which Secretary Rogers brought up the cease-fire violations in his Friday evening talks with Foreign Minister Gromyko. One informed source said he did not produce aerial photographs of Russian missile sites in the standstill cease-fire zone but did present Mr. Gromyko with a catalogue of alleged violations which included a map with the coordinate of the missile sites.