The State Department confirmed today that the U.S. government has received official notification from Egypt that it seeks to have the Geneva peace conference reconvened and said that the U.S. would be in touch with its conference co-chairman, the Soviet Union, and with other parties to it regarding a date and other possible participants.
Department spokesman Robert Anderson, who made the announcement, said he would not discuss the nature of the Egyptian message other than the fact that Egypt made the request. He said there was no estimate at this time of a date and that no date was suggested by Egypt. Questioned on reports that the United Kingdom and France might be invited by Arab countries to participate in the Geneva talks, Anderson said the U.S. obviously would be talking with the Soviet Union and other parties, but he would not discuss U.S. views on that aspect.
State Department sources were quoted yesterday as cautioning that a Middle East peace settlement would be difficult to achieve at the Geneva conference but that the U.S. was ready to go along with the multi-national forum.
The sources referred to Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s news conference last Wednesday when he said peace negotiations were more effectively dealt with on a step-by-step basis. He acknowledged the failure of that approach last month and observed that the Mideast issues would now have to be taken up “comprehensively, under more difficult circumstances,” meaning the Geneva parley.
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