Jarring Resumes Middle East Peace Rounds, Will Confer with Abba Eban

The United Nations peace envoy, Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring, resumed his rounds of Middle Eastern capitals this week and is expected here Wednesday to confer with Foreign Minister Abba Eban following visits to Cairo, Amman and Beirut. Mr. Eban is expected to ask Dr. Jarring what replies he had received from the Arab states regarding their interpretations of the formula “a just and lasting peace” contained in the Security Council’s Nov. 22,1967 resolution which established the Jarring mission.

Foreign Ministry circles said meanwhile that yesterday’s dispatch in the Washington Post from Alfred Friendly in Paris confirmed their opinion of the past few months that Egypt is using the Jarring mission as a means of preventing Palestinian Arabs from reaching a settlement with Israel and does not want his mission to succeed. Mr. Friendly, who attributed his information to Egyptian Foreign Ministry sources, said Egypt’s interest in the Jarring mission was for propaganda purposes and that they feared that Arabs in the occupied West Bank might come to terms with Israel if the mission were dropped. He said the basic Egyptian strategy as outlined by Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad last May is aimed at mobilizing world opinion to force the United States to end its support of Israel.

(New York Times correspondent Eric Pace reported from Cairo today that Government spokesmen would neither confirm nor deny the Washington Post dispatch. The Egyptian Government news agency meanwhile reported that Ambassador Jarring had informed Mr. Riad in a two-hour meeting yesterday that Israel still insists on direct negotiations with the Arab countries and feels that President Nasser has been “encouraging and inciting war.”)