The United States, Israel and Egypt will try to work out “general principles and understandings” for autonomy on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip when negotiations on the ministerial level resume in Cairo Wednesday, a senior State Department official said today.
The official told reporters that these principles would provide the framework from which the specific autonomy arrangements could be established. He denied that this was adding a new layer to what had to be accomplished by the three countries.
The decision to seek the principles was made at the Ministerial meeting in September at which it was decided to establish as “their initial and immediate objective, not excluding other avenues, an agreement on understandings, and principles towards the implementation of the framework agreed on at Camp David.”
The official explained that this framework would try to do for the autonomy agreement what the Camp David framework had done for the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. He said that, when the general principles were adopted, he hoped that the Palestinians would join in the effort to work out the practical agreements needed to implement autonomy.
PALESTINIANS WATCHING NEGOTIATIONS
The Palestinians have been watching the talks despite their refusal to participate, the official noted. He said that under the Camp David accords the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza could join the negotiations as part of either the Egyptian or Jordanian delegations. Jordan has refused to join the talks but the Palestinians could still join the Egyptian group, the official said. He suggested that the Palestinian representatives could be the Mayors of West Bank and Gaza municipalities.
The official, who has been involved in the autonomy talks since they began in May, 1979, said there was a lot of misinformation about the Camp David agreements. He said what the Camp David agreements call for is an autonomy agreement that would be a five-year transition period until the final status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is decided upon. Within three years after the autonomy agreement has become effective, negotiations must begin on the final status of the West Bank and Gaza. Both Israel and the Arab inhabitants of the area must agree on the final status, he said.
The talks now deal with the administrative council that will be set up to administer autonomy during this transitional period, the State Department official explained. He said the negotiations covered what this body will be able to do and what it will not be able to do.
MORE PROGRESS THAN EVER MADE SINCE SEPTEMBER
The official said that since September the working groups have been meeting almost constantly and have made much more progress than ever before. He said this was due to the fact that the representatives of the three countries now knew each other better and no longer had to stick to rigid positions set by their superiors. There has been “a great deal of heat, but also a great deal more light,” he said.
The official stressed that the Camp David accords do not link Israel’s final withdrawal from the Sinai, scheduled for next April, with reaching an agreement on autonomy. However, he conceded there was a “psychological” linkage.
But he stressed there could be no deadline for the talks. “It takes a long time and a lot of hard work to get people to overcome all these decades of hostilities,” he said. He noted the years it took to reach the SALT II agreement and to end the Vietnam hostilities. “The world needs a comprehensive peace in that area (Mideast) and you don’t put deadlines on needs like that,” the official said.
EUROPEAN PARTICIPATION IN SINAI FORCE
Meanwhile, the State Department said it was continuing to have talks with members of the European Economic Community (EEC) about their joining the international force that will patrol the Sinai after Israel’s withdrawal. European participation has been put in doubt because British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, chairman of the EEC Council of Ministers attacked the Camp David process in Saudi Arabia last week while praising the eight-point “peace plan” of Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
“We trust a way will be found to permit their (the Europeans) participation,” State Department deputy spokesman Alan Romberg said today. He refused to comment on the Fahd plan, declaring that the United States has only one plan to achieve peace in the Mideast and that is Camp David. Romberg also said that no date has been set for a visit by Fahd to Washington. Saudi Arabian newspapers reported last week that Fahd was due to come here Dec. 1.
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