The State Department bluntly reiterated today that the visit of American Black leaders with Palestine Liberation Organization officials in the Middle East has not changed U.S. opposition to dealing with the terrorist group without preconditions. The reiteration came several hours before President Carter made the same point at his press conference here.
The State Department noted in that connection that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s messages through the Rev. Jesse Jackson, to PLO chief Yasir Arafat have been rejected by the PLO and by “another country other than the U.S.” According to State Department sources, Syria also rejected the Sadat overture. The contents of Sadat’s messages have not been made public.
The Department’s statement followed Jackson’s 90-minute meeting yesterday with the U.S. Special Ambassador to the Middle East, Robert Strauss, and Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders. The meeting was held at Jackson’s request, the State Department said.
Since the PLO had issued a six-point statement after Jackson’s visit with Arafat and others in Beirut last week, the State Department was asked today if that was “sufficient for the U.S. to re-examine its policy” of not dealing with the PLO. “No,” the Department’s chief spokesman Hodding Carter replied, “we haven’t changed our position.”
The State Department has said many times in the past that before the U.S. deals with the PLO, apart from “security considerations” for American personnel, such as in Lebanon, the PLO will have to recognize Israel’s right ### and accept UN Security Council Resolution 242.
Spokesman Carter had pointed out previously that the PLO’s six-point statement to Jackson and to Walter Fauntroy and Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) did not alter the PLO’s position.
While Jackson visited Strauss and Sounders, neither Fauntroy nor Lowery have given their versions separately to the Carter Administration. Fauntroy said he will report to the House of Representatives on the SCLC visit in his capacity as the District of Columbia’s representative to Congress, but he has not done so yet.
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