U.S. Mum on Mideast Diplomacy

The State Department today sidestepped questions dealing with Middle East political and economic reports as it strived to help implement the coordination of energy stabilization efforts agreed upon yesterday by the United States, Japan, Canada and nine Western European countries, but not France.

Arab policy on production, pricing and distribution of petroleum, including the embargo, is the primary problem facing the Department. But State Department officials made plain they would not publicly discuss subjects that might give a negative touch to negotiations with the Arab countries on oil. Spokesman George Vest’s general response to newsmen’s questions was that “we strongly support efforts to reach peace in the area and we are using our influence in that way” but “we won’t say anything” in view of the “immense interplay of Arab diplomacy.”

Among questions Vest declined to discuss was whether the U.S. has asked Egypt to request Iraq to reopen diplomatic relations with the United States in view of a Beirut report that Iraq would resume ties with the United Kingdom but not with Washington. Another concerned a re-port that the U.S. had asked Israel to restrain from countering Syrian attacks on the Golan Heights and Arab terrorist infiltration from Lebanon and that the U.S. had made a similar appeal to Syria. A third concerned a report that Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger has made a proposal for Syrian-Israeli military disengagement.