The State Department sought to deny today that Secretary of State Alexander Haig had placed some of the blame on Jordan for the violence on the West Bank.
Haig, appearing on the NBC-TV “Meet the Press” program yesterday, said that “measures” taken by Jordan helped “trigger” the events in the occupied territories. When Department spokesman Dean Fischer was asked to name the measures Jordan had taken, he replied instead that the Secretary’s, remarks “were made in the context of our abhorrence of the recent violence on the West Bank and our repeated calls on those who can influence the situation to help calm it.”
When a reporter pointed out that this was not the context in which Haig’s remarks were made, Fischer replied, “I think what he (Haig) was suggesting is that along with others, Jordan has an influence on the situation.”
TEXT CONFIRMS HAIG’S STATEMENT
But the State Department’s own text of the NBC interview showed that the Secretary made his charge against Jordan after denying that the Israeli policy, which he said included “measures” that “have not been a source of comfort to this government,” was not one of de facto annexation.
“Also, it is important that we keep the whole issue of this contemporary violence on the West Bank, which we abhor, in proper perspective,” Haig went on to say. “I think you will recall there were some measures taken also by the government of Jordan which tended to trigger the events that we are faced with today. And I think it is important, whether we are in the United Nations or here in our nation’s capital, that we attempt to maintain a level of objectivity on these very vexing questions.”
Meanwhile, Gen. Abdel Halim Abo Ghazala, Egypt’s Defense Minister, told reporters at the State Department that at his meeting with Haig this morning he told the Secretary that Egypt was “worried about the West Bank” situation. But he expressed hope that it would not affect the autonomy talks. Abu Ghazala stressed that Egypt is “looking for peace and we are going to stick to peace. There is nothing to be done to stop the peace process.”
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