The Cabinet met in special session today to hear Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan’s report on his talks with Egyptian Premier Mustapha Khalil and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in Brussels over the weekend. No decisions were made and the discussion was not concluded, according to Cabinet Secretary Arye Naor.
The Cabinet sat as a ministerial defense committee and its deliberations therefore were classified. Naor disclosed only that five ministers spoke following Dayan’s briefing. He said, however, that the Cabinet’s resolution adopted last week remains valid. In that resolution the government rejected Egypt’s latest proposals but expressed readiness to reconsider a letter to accompany a peace treaty with Egypt that would deal with the issue of autonomy on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
There was considerable interest in today’s Cabinet meeting because Dayan is thought to have modified his position on the resumption of peace talks with Egypt. Two weeks ago, the Foreign Minister declared publicly that there was nothing more to discuss and it was up to the Egyptians to accept or reject the draft treaty as it stands. On his return from Brussels however, Dayan said both parties should make compromises in order to resume the negotiations.
(President Carter, vacationing in Plains, Ga., said yesterday, “I think we will have a peace treaty in the Middle East….” He said he spoke to Vance on his return from Brussels and the Secretary “thought that the Israelis and the Egyptians had a good, solid discussion” there. “It was constructive. He (Vance) felt very pleased with it,” Carter said.)
(President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, interviewed on Cairo television yesterday on the occasion of his 60th birthday, charged that the refusal of other Arab states to unite behind his peace initiative was playing into the hands of Premier Menachem Begin who, he alleged, was seeking to frustrate a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East. “It is in Begin’s interest that the Arab countries remain divided to achieve his objectives by creating a greater Israel from the Euphrates to the Nile,” Sadat said. He characterized Begin as an expansionist for 30 years. Nevertheless, he was optimistic that a settlement would be achieved eventually.)
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