U.S. Welcomes Sadat-begin Meeting

The United States welcomed today the announcement by Premier Menachem Begin and President Anwar Sadat that they will meet next week and expressed hope that their meeting might help defuse the current tension over Lebanon.

At the same time, the U.S. said that Israel’s air raid today on Libyan-manned anti-aircraft missiles at a Palestinian base in Lebanon would have no effect on the mission of President Reagan’s special envoy, Philip Habib, to calm the situation in that country.

State Department spokesman Dean Fischer said that while he had no details of the agenda of the Begin-Sadat meeting, it was “almost inconceivable” that they would not discuss the situation in Lebanon. “One would hope that it might make some contribution to defusing the tension” there, Fischer added.

AIR STRIKE WON’T AFFECT HABIB MISSION

The spokesman also said that he had no details of the Israeli air raid to knock out the Libyan missiles and knew nothing of a second raid on a Palestinian base near Beirut. He said, however, that the U.S. “continues to urge maximum restraint on all the parties concerned.”

Fischer said the air strike did not affect Habib’s mission which, he noted, was to ease the tension in Lebanon between Israel and Syria. He explained that the Israeli air raid was in an area of Lebanon not occupied by Syrian forces. “We do not believe the Israeli action today is necessarily related to our efforts to defuse the tension,” he said.

Habib, who was sent to the Middle East three weeks ago to prevent the Israeli-Syrian dispute over the missiles from escalating into war, was recalled by President Reagan for consultations yesterday and is expected in Washington late today. He will report to the President some time tomorrow. Habib is scheduled to return to the Middle East next week.