Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance has returned from his six-day visit to six Middle East countries, cautiously hopeful of progress but publicly acknowledging no specific forward move in the political process for an Arab-Israeli settlement or even a conference.
“No, I don’t think there has been any made on this trip.” Vance said last night with reference to procedure or substance. But he pointed out that was not his goal. His purpose, he said to reporters, was to define points of understanding and disagreement among the antagonists and it appeared that Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria all agreed in principle for a Geneva conference to negotiate substantive issues without preconditions when procedural questions are resolved. (Vance also was in Lebanon which is not a party to the Geneva conference as presently constituted.)
The chief obstacle to procedure is also substantive since it is the matter of representation at a conference by the Palestine Liberation Organization. On this point, the situation is unchanged, as UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim found in his visit to the Mideast earlier this month. Israel won’t deal with the PLO.
Vance has apparently moved closer to the Israeli view since he said during the trip that the PLO must alter its covenant that now calls for elimination of Israel in addition to adhering to UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
Vance has said that the parties continue to be “deeply divided” over the nature of peace, Israeli withdrawal and the resolution of the Palestinian question. While the Arabs, he indicated, are also divided over the PLO, he was reported as commenting yesterday to reporters during a flight from Damascus to the Azores where his plane made a refueling stop, “If Israel is going to respond to peace efforts of the Arab side it must recognize as a prerequisite the rights of the Arab people of Palestine.”
This point may be clarified after this week or perhaps not publicly until Feb. 28 when Vance makes his scheduled appearance before the Senate Banking Subcommittee that is conducting hearings on legislation to combat the Arab boycott.
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