State Department Says Rogers Speech Was Aimed at Improving U.s.–arab Relations

High ranking State Department officials said today that Secretary of State William P. Rogers’ Middle East speech was aimed frankly at improving America’s relations with the Arab states. They noted that it was the Government’s hope to limit anticipated anti-American statements at the forthcoming Arab summit conference at Rabat. Morocco by convincing the Arabs that the United States was pursuing a policy of impartiality and “balance” in its efforts to resolve the Mideast crisis.

State Department officials said it was felt that the American position had been “distorted in a number of instances.” They said that the U.S. Government had suffered because of “private diplomacy” and that it was now thought desirable to “go on the record.” Mr. Rogers’ speech, delivered before the Galaxy Conference on Adult Education in New York yesterday made public what had been hitherto private American proposals to the Soviet Union to break the Middle East deadlock. Mr. Rogers disclosed that the proposals were made on Oct. 28 but Moscow has not responded to date.

The Secretary of State’s address was the most comprehensive statement of U.S. Middle East policy yet made by a spokesman for the Nixon Administration. State Department officials said they were anticipating a reply to the Oct. 28 proposals which pertained mainly to an American plan for Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula accompanied by an agreement between Israel and Egypt through negotiations along the lines of the 1949 armistice agreements negotiated at Rhodes.

Mr. Rogers said, “We will not shrink from advocating necessary compromises, even though they may be and probably will be unpalatable to both sides.” He noted that the American proposals “have been conveyed to the interested parties through diplomatic channels.”

The Secretary of State disclosed that the U.S. is now “ready to pursue the Jordanian aspects of a settlement” and announced new proposals on Jerusalem and the Arab refugee problem. “There can be no lasting peace without a just settlement of the problem of those Palestinians whom the wars of 1948 and 1967 made homeless,” he said. Mr. Rogers warned that the refugee problem “will become increasingly serious” because of a “new consciousness among the young Palestinians who have grown up since 1948.”

SECRETARY OF STATE SAYS JERUSALEM SHOULD BE UNIFIED, OPEN TO ALL

On the future status of Jerusalem, the Secretary of State declared, “We believe Jerusalem should be a unified city within which there would no longer be restrictions on the movement of persons and goods. There should be open access to the unified city for persons of all faiths and nationalities. Arrangements for the administration of the unified city should take into account the interests of all its inhabitants and of the Jewish, Islamic and Christian communities. And there should be roles for both Israel and Jordan in the civic, economic and religious life of the city.”

On the question of Israel’s withdrawal from most of the territories it occupied during the June, 1967 War, Mr. Rogers said that it would not preclude what he described as “insubstantial” boundary rectifications agreed to by Israel and the Arab states in negotiations between them He stressed, however, that “our policy is and will continue to be a balanced one…To call for Israeli withdrawal as envisaged in the United Nations (Nov.22,1967) resolution without achieving agreement on peace would be partisan toward the Arabs.” He said, “To call on the Arabs to accept peace without Israeli withdrawal would be partisan toward Israel. Therefore our policy is to encourage the Arabs to accept a permanent peace based on a binding agreement and to urge the Israelis to withdraw from occupied territory when their integrity is assured as envisaged by the Security Council resolution.”

State Department officials would not amplify Mr. Rogers’ reference to “insubstantial” border rectifications. However, he said that “in the context of peace and agreement on specific security safeguards.” Israeli forces would be required to withdraw from Egyptian territory “to the international border between Israel and Egypt which has been in existence for over a half century.”

Mr. Rogers noted that “the boundaries from which the 1967 war began were established in the 1949 armistice agreements.” He observed, however, that they were armistice lines, not final political borders and that all rights, claims and positions of the parties were reserved in an ultimate peace settlement. Mr. Rogers said the Security Council resolution “neither endorses nor precludes these armistice lines as the definitive political boundaries.”

Mr. Rogers said the U.S. believed that “the conditions and obligations of peace must be defined. For example, navigation rights in the Suez Canal and in the Straits of Tiran must be spelled out. A peace agreement between the parties must be based on clear and stated intentions and a willingness to bring about basic changes in the attitudes and conditions which are characteristic of the Middle East today.”

Tracing the bilateral (U.S.-USSR) and Four Power (U.S. USSR, Britain and France) discussions on the Middle East, Mr. Rogers said, “We knew that nations not directly involved could not make a durable peace for the peoples and governments involved. Peace rests with the parties to the conflict. The efforts of major powers can help; they can provide a catalyst; they can stimulate the parties to talk; they can help define a realistic framework or agreement; but an agreement among other powers cannot be a substitute for agreement among the parties themselves.”

Mr. Rogers said that in recent meetings with the Soviet Union “new formulas” were discussed. These involved a commitment by Egypt and Israel to maintain peace with the obligation to prevent hostile acts originating from their respective territories; a negotiating process involving the so-called Rhodes formula; in the context of peace and agreement on security safeguards, “withdrawal of Israeli troops from Egyptian territory would be required,” Mr. Rogers told his audience that there is no area of the world today that is more important than the Middle East “because it could easily again be the source of another serious conflagration.” State Department officials pointed out that the increased activities of the Palestine guerrilla movements made the situation “more difficult” and the Government felt it wise to press for an early solution.