Taba Border Dispute Talks Continuing

The Israeli and Egyptian delegations which resumed talks on the Taba border dispute in Cairo last week will meet for a second session tomorrow at a hotel in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.

Informed sources said the two sides are on the same wavelength but still separated by a wide gulf. The situation is complicated by a sharp division inside the Israeli delegation reflecting the differences between Labor and Likud over how the dispute should be settled.

Some newspapers here reported today that Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier Yitzhak Shamir, leader of Likud, has expressed dissatisfaction over the way the talks went at the Mena House in Cairo last week. Specifically, he has accused the head of the delegation, Gen. Avraham Tamir, Director General of the Prime Minister’s Office, of taking a too conciliatory attitude toward the Egyptians.

Tamir is a Laborite. Likud is represented on the delegation by David Kimche, Director General of the Foreign Ministry. Labor is apparently willing to meet Egypt’s long-standing demand that the Taba dispute be put to binding arbitration. Likud insists on conciliation, with arbitration only a last resort. Both methods are allowed under the terms of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

Labor and Likud were unable to reconcile their different approaches before the Taba talks were resumed last week after a prolonged hiatus. Tamir was said to be inching toward a practical discussion of how to prepare for arbitration, for example, the nature of the questions the arbitrator would be asked to decide on, while trying conciliation — essentially compromise — in the interim.

The dual process would be given a trial period, presumably three months, after which, if conciliation fails, arbitration would be automatic.

Highly placed sources told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that the major obstacle is Egypt’s absolute refusal to countenance even the use of the term conciliation and Shamir’s equally adamant insistance on conciliation.