Sadat Proposes El Arish As Site for Future Negotiations Between Israel, Arabs Who Want to Talk Peace

Egypt is proposing that El Arish, the capital of Sinai which Israel is to vacate in 10 weeks, serve as the site of any future negotiations between Israel and Arab parties that want to talk peace with her. President Anwar Sadat made the proposal at a news conference he gave at the Egyptian Embassy here yesterday for Israeli and Egyptian journalists.

He said that in this way potential Arab peacemakers would have an “advantage” which he did not have when he launched his peace initiative by traveling to Jerusalem. He said that if any Arab party wished to talk peace with Israel secretly, Egypt would do its best to assist in that.

Sadat said Egypt had already begun extensive lobbying among Arab moderates to garner support for the peace treaty. This had been the purpose, he said, of Vice President Hosni Mubarak’s recent meetings with President Gaafor Numeiri of Sudan and King Khalid of Saudi Arabia.

Sadat indicated that the forthcoming Israel-Egypt negotiations on the Palestinian autonomy; due to begin in six weeks or so, would be held in El Arish and–perhaps alternate–in Beersheba. He said he hoped that “a new style” would prevail on the Israeli side now that the peace treaty had been signed and that “no more time than necessary” would be lost at the autonomy negotiations.

He mourned the “lost sixteen months” that had elapsed between his visit to Jerusalem and the signing of the peace treaty. “If everything had gone, on in the spirit of my initiative, “he said, “we could have had an Israeli Ambassador in Cairo and an Egyptian Ambassador in Tel Aviv months ago….”

This remark came in response to a question on his feeling about Premier Menachem Begin’s handling of the peace negotiations. Sadat was careful to avoid any more direct or pointed criticism than that of the Israeli leader.

Noting that this was his first appearance on Israeli television, Sadat said he wanted to take the opportunity once again to praise “my ally, the Israeli mothers” for their role in making the peace possible. “I salute the Israeli mothers, “he said smilingly.

THE PALESTINIAN QUESTION

Pressed on the Palestinian question, Sadat warned that it was “the crux and core of the conflict” and that without its solution there would be no “permanent and comprehensive peace” in the area. But he sidestepped saying specifically that Egypt demanded the creation of a Palestinian state.

“What I want Israeli public opinion to know,” Sadat said, “is that Egypt always has certain responsibilities, certain commitments to its Arab colleagues”–whatever those “colleagues” were presently saying. The Camp David “framework for peace” was “the proper channel to start with in solving the Palestinian problem,” he said.

“What I am asking is this the Palestinians should determine their own future. I can’t speak for them; they should speak for themselves. Let us start with the full autonomy. According to the Camp David framework, after a few years we will sit with the Palestinians” and negotiate the permanent status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Sadat noted.

Despite the Palestine Liberation Organization’s present recalcitrance and terrorism Sadat said, Israelis should realize that “these people are desperate, since they were ill-treated.” This did not mean, he stressed, that he agreed with the PLO’s “views” or with its actions. There “should come a time,” he said, when Israel would be able to sit down and talk with the PLO.

DISCLOSES SOVIET EFFORT IN 1972

Sadat disclosed that the Soviet Union proposed in 1972 that he meet with then-Premier Golda Meir at Tashkent. “Would they have attacked me if I had agreed to meet her then?” Sadat asked vigorously rebutting Soviet criticism of his present-peace initiative.

He said that “for sure the late Mrs. Meir would have tried to translate our defeat in the Six-Day War into a treaty then,” thus appearing to confirm the thesis that Egypt spurned direct peace contacts before 1973 because it felt that any negotiations would be engaged in out of weakness.

Earlier in the day, Sadat told reporters that Jerusalem should be ruled by a combined council of Israelis and Arabs and should never be divided again. He said that at the Camp David summit meeting with Premier Menachem Begin of Israel and President Carter, “I agreed that Jerusalem shall not be divided again by barbed wire. But this shall not cancel Moslem rights, the rights of 700, million Moslems. Sovereignty in Arab Jerusalem should return” to the Arab population. He did not explain how the combined council might work or the duration of the proposed council. He also did not answer a reporter’s question about whether Jerusalem should remain the capital of Israel.