Israel and Egypt appeared to be moving rapidly today toward negotiations aimed at a peace treaty between the two countries by the end of the year. A dispute over the site of the peace talks that surfaced over the weekend apparently was resolved by President Carter’s invitation to hold them in Washington. President Anwar Sadat told reporters in Cairo yesterday that Egypt has accepted the invitation to send its delegation to Washington, commencing Oct.12, the day after Yom Kippur.
There was no official word from Israel because of the Rosh Hashanah holidays. But it is believed that Israel has accepted the President’s proposal although some officials in Jerusalem were reported to have had reservations about the Washington site. The White House confirmed Carter’s invitation yesterday.
Sadat, in a major address to the Egyptian parliament yesterday on the Camp David summit conference, announced that Carter has accepted his invitation to come to Carter for the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty later this year. A White House spokesman said the President wanted to attend the signing but he did not know if it would be in Egypt.
SADAT PRAISES CARTER, RAPS REJECTIONISTS
Sadat was lavish in his praise of Carter who, he said, had saved the Camp David talks from collapse. In his speech to the parliament he stressed America’s full partnership role in the summit talks and in the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations that lie ahead. He denounced Arab critics of the Camp David frameworks, including the Palestine Liberation Organization, and urged Syria and Jordan to join in the negotiations with Israel based on the Camp David formulas.
King Hussein of Jordan disclosed Sunday, on the CBS television “Face the Nation” program that he has submitted a long series of written questions to the U.S. seeking clarification of the peace frame works agreed to at Camp David. He indicated that Jordan’s decision whether or not to participate in the peace talks would depend on the answers forthcoming from Washington and on a full partnership role by the U.S. in the negotiations.
HUSSEIN KEEPS DOOR OPEN
Hussein said he had been given the impression by Sadat that the Egyptian leader intended to negotiate a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement at Camp David and would not agree to a separate peace with Israel outside of a comprehend-
Hussein indicated that he has not closed the door to Jordan’s participation in the Israeli-Egyptian talks on the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip but stressed that at the moment, his country was being asked to join in the implementation of an agreement that it had no part in formulating.
“We feel there is no moral or legal obligation for us to be involved in such an agreement,” he said. He added that the questions submitted to the U.S. included the extent of American participation in the talks, the future of East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements on the West Bank and the presence of Israeli troops there after the negotiating period.
BEGIN SEEKS TO MOLLIFY OPPONENTS
There were few developments in Israel because of the holiday. Premier Menachem Begin entered the hospital Friday suffering from fatigue in the aftermath of the 18-hour marathon debate in the Knesset which ratified the Camp David accords by an overwhelming margin early last Thursday morning. Begin left the hospital Sunday under orders from his doctors to rest at home for a few days.
Begin sought to mollify opponents of the Camp David agreements, especially those within his own Herut faction. In newspaper interviews published over the weekend, he stressed that the agreement to remove Israeli settlements in northern Sinai within the framework of a peace treaty with Egypt did not establish a precedent. He insisted that Israel would never withdraw its settlements from the West Bank and Golan Heights.
He said the freeze on new settlements on the West Bank would apply only for the three-month period of negotiations with Egypt and that existing settlements there would continue to be expanded even during that interim.
‘ON THE THRESHOLD OF PEACE’
It was announced in Cairo yesterday that Sadat has appointed Mustafa Khalil as the new Prime Minister to lead what he called Egypt’s “great march” to peace and prosperity. Khalil, a 58-year-old American-educated engineer, is expected to form a new Cabinet within the next few days. He succeeds Mamdouh Salem who served as Egypt’s Prime Minister since 1975.
Sadat told his parliament, “Now that we are on the threshold of peace, the people are calling on me to dedicate myself to the internal situation…. We must work harder, we must dedicate ourselves. We are embarking on a big change….It cannot happen overnight…(but) we are on the way to peace and on the way to prosperity.”
Sadat challenged the Arab rejectionists to make a better deal than Egypt. “This is what Egypt was able to do at this stage,” he said, referring to the Camp David agreements. “We do not claim to have reached a comprehensive settlement, but we have prepared the road toward a comprehensive settlement,” he said. Declaring that Egypt was the first country to secure the liberation of occupied Arab territory, Sadat observed:
“Those who say no are those who don’t have to put up with the bitterness of occupation, in jail and concentration camps…. I am demanding that the other Arabs do something positive to alleviate the plight of those people who have lived in darkness. I am asking King Hussein to shoulder his responsibilities…. I am asking the responsible people in Syria to share in the talks…. I am calling on the leadership of the Palestinians, the Palestine Liberation Organization and others to end their feuds among themselves and agree on a certain line of conduct.”
In a bitter attack on the rejectionist countries, Sadat said that “Egypt constitutes a great danger to those regimes. They liquidate people in Iraq. They hang people in Libya. Here in Egypt, we have democracy, we have security, we safeguard the dignity of man. They dread it all.”
The U.S. proposed Israeli-Egyptian peace talks in Washington after Egypt suggested Ismailia, on the Suez Canal, as the site and Israel countered with a proposal that the talks alternate between Ismailia and Beersheba in southern Israel. Israeli officials who opposed the U.S. offer argued that the two parties should be permitted to negotiate alone without the Americans looking over their shoulders.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
