United States Ambassador Andrew Young, president of the Security Council this month, is expected to consult Tuesday with Council members on Egypt’s request for a Council debate on the failure so far to reactivate the Geneva conference on a Middle East peace.
The Council is scheduled to open a debate March 21 on the situation in South Africa but Egypt reportedly wants the Mideast debate to take priority over all other matters. The United States has been strongly opposed to a Council debate while President Carter is conducting meetings with Mideast leaders scheduled to last through mid-May.
Meanwhile, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt yesterday opened the meeting of the Palestine National Council by declaring that Egypt will not drop its demand that Israel withdraw from all territory occupied since 1967. “I want all to listen on this occasion,” he said. “We shall not cede one inch of our land. The national land is not open for bargaining.”
Apparently responding to Carter’s statements last week that Israel must have defensible borders, Sadat declared “It is no longer acceptable that some should talk again about secure borders within the Israeli concepts, which are obsolete.”
He said that “any talk about secure borders must take place within the framework of a comprehensive settlement during which all aspects of the problem should be discussed foremost among them the Palestinian cause. One of the starting points in this respect should be the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all Arab occupied territories, respect of the territorial integrity and non-acquisition of territories by force because we are not going to reward aggression but eliminate it.”
Carter had also said that while Israel should withdraw from the occupied territory there should be “minor” adjustments in the 1967 line and that Israel might have defense capabilities beyond its legal borders.
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