Dayan’s Goal; Open Borders

Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan said here today that he fully intends to have people moving across the borders between Israel and Egypt in both directions soon Precisely how soon and how many people are among the myriad details under discussion here between Dayan and his Egyptian counterpart Foreign Minister Butros Ghali.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat arranged what Dayan called “a pleasant surprise” by inviting the Foreign Minister to come and see him as soon as he touched down at Cairo Airport this morning. Dayan and his aides were whisked off by helicopter to the President’s residence at Ismailia. After the meeting, Dayan told Israeli newsmen that Sadat “stands firm” on the pledges of accelerated normalization that he gave to Premier Menachem Begin last week in El Arish. During their conversation, said Dayan, Sadat repeatedly pointed an authoritative finger at Ghali, instructing him to implement the various issues touched upon. Dayan seemed pleased with the meeting, terming Sadat’s attitude “entirely positive, not only in respect of the treaty provisions, but also as regards speeding-up the pace of the normalization process.”

Also present at the meeting were, on the Egyptian side, Vice President Hosni Mobarak, and, flanking Dayan, his Director General Yosef Ciechanover and his legal aide Meir Rosenne. This evening Dayan and his team began the down-to-earth business of negotiating the normalization together with Ghali and Egyptian officials at the ornate, Foreign Ministry building here. There will probably be a further session Wednesday morning before Dayan leaves for home. Dayan will spend tomorrow touring Luxor, in upper Egypt. But it is already clear that more negotiating will be required, on a lower level, before the tangible effects of the “open borders” begin to be applied.

Civil aviation experts from both countries will have to delineate together the precise details of the proposed air corridor between Cairo and Tel Aviv before commercial airliners can fly the route. Israeli sources are hoping, though, that the rough path of this corridor can be agreed upon during the present round of talks. These sources said that both TWA, the U.S. carrier, and the Dutch airline KLM have shown an interest in flying the Tel Aviv-Cairo route. The air corridor is not likely to connect the two cities in a straight line over the Negev. Planes will be required to fly out to sea before swinging back over the Egyptian coast.

Dayan’s small jet flew that route today making the journey in less than an hour. There was no room aboard the 10-seater plane, however, for Israeli newsmen covering this trip. They were flown in a vintage Air Force transport which stuck to the existing air lanes. That flight took three hours, arriving in Cairo just in time to see Dayan conclude his airport press conference.

PRE-YOM KIPPUR WAR DAYS DISCUSSED

This evening, Dayan and wife Rachel, were dinner guests of Dr. and Mrs. Ghali. Tomorrow night there will be a lavish dinner in their honor and on Wednesday morning the Foreign Minister is due to meet with Egypt’s Premier, Mustapha Khalil, before flying home. Recounting his meeting with Sadat with apparent pleasure, Dayan said the two men had reviewed “hypothetical questions concerning the pre Yom Kippur War period.” Sadat has said in the past that if Dayan had pressed more tenaciously his “interim pullback” idea in 1971, the war might have been avoided. Both Sadat and Dayan at the time seemed attracted to the idea of a partial Israeli pullback from the Suez Canal as a step towards peace. But Sadat’s terms were an Israeli commitment to a timetable for ultimate total withdrawal and the Goldo Meir government rejected this out of hand. Some observers felt, and some still feel, that Israel should have explored that “first Sadat initiative” more probingly.

Dayan himself refused to say what measure of agreement he and Sadat had achieved in their study of what might have been. Dayan said he and Sadat steered clear of such thorny subjects as West Bank settlements, the autonomy talks and Palestinian aspirations. He said Sadat spoke at length of Egypt’s difficulties in the Arab world but seemed to draw comfort and encouragement from the fact that his own people were so determinedly supportive of his policy. Sadat noted that the Arab hardliners were riven with feuds.