Acting Palestine mediator Dr. Ralph Bunche today ##egan preliminary talks with Dr. Walter Eytan, director-general of the Israeli Foreign office, in an effort to prepare the way for armistice talks between Israel and Transjordan, Reuters reported from Rhodes.
The meeting between the two men, which lasted over two hours, followed last light’s decision by Trans Jordan to sit down at armistice talks with the Israelis. Dr. Bunche and Dr. Eytan, who is the leader of the Israeli delegation at Rhodes, also dis?ssed the slow-moving Jewish-Egyptian armistice talks, now almost a month old.
Dr. Eytan declared the Israelis are not prepared to open further talks until negotiations with Egypt are concluded, successfully or otherwise. United Nations sources said, however, that Dr. Bunche might ask Israel to establish some preliminary contact with Trans Jordan on the questions which are affecting settlement with Egypt.
Another question believed to have been discussed by Dr. Bunche and Dr. Eytan today was the place where the Israeli-Transjordanian talks will take place. Transjordan is known to have suggested Jerusalem to the U.N. representative in Amman, but this suggestion is not popular with either the U.N. authorities or the Israelis. Soth Dr. Bunche and Dr. Eytan are reported to have agreed that Rhodes is suitable for such a meeting. The Israeli delegation for the Transjordanian talks will be substantially the same as the present team, with the addition of Col. Moshe Dayan, Jewish ?litary commander in Jerusalem, an Israeli source said in Rhodes.
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