State Department Contends There is No Firm Plan for Sisco to Meet with Nasser

A State Department spokesman said today that there were no firm plans for Joseph Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, to meet with UAR President Nasser despite earlier reports from here, Jerusalem and Cairo that the two officials would meet. Administration officials were reported yesterday as saying that Mr. Sisco and Pres. Nasser would confer next Friday. One report noted that the one-day visit was arranged in Washington and that Cairo accepted the proposal and sent a formal invitation. Asked whether the United States had sought this meeting, State Department spokesman Carl Bartch declined to comment. Diplomatic sources in Cairo said over the weekend that Mr. Sisco was due here next Friday for talks with Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad and possibly with Pres. Nasser. Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem have already declared that Mr. Sisco’s visit to Cairo and Jerusalem is welcomed because it would give him a chance to assess Egypt’s “war of attrition” and compare it to Israel’s orientation toward peace.

When the State Department first announced on March 31 Mr. Sisco’s trip to the Middle East it termed it a routine visit to Teheran for a meeting with the chief of the United States Mission in the Middle East. The State Department Robert J. McClosky said then that Mr. Sisco had no plans to travel elsewhere in the area but added that it was “always possible.” The announcement of his pending Mideast trip came at a time when Mr. Sisco had resumed meeting with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin in what some Washington officials termed the resumption of the Two-Power talks. Mr. Sisco and Mr. Dobrynin met again yesterday but there was no comment from either side on what transpired or on when the two officials would again meet. The feeling among some in Washington was that Mr. Sisco might convey the general nature and tenor of the talks with Mr. Dobrynin to Egyptian and Israeli officials and in turn transmit their response in further talks when he returns home. It is possible, some observers noted, that a new meeting date between Mr. Dobrynin and Mr. Sisco is contingent on what happens during his Middle East trip.