The State Department confirmed today that Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger will meet with the Shah of Iran in Zurich next Tuesday for “a general review of the many subjects” that they discussed when the Secretary was in Teheran last November.
According to news reports from the Middle East today, the Shah has said he was prepared to guarantee Israel’s oil requirements to make up for the loss it would incur if it returned the Abu Rodeis oil fields in Sinai to Egypt under the terms of a second-stage agreement. According to the report, the U.S. said it would assure Israel’s oil supplies if Iran failed to meet its needs in an emergency. Iran is the only foreign supplier of Israeli oil and provides more than one-half of its needs. According to one estimate, 55 percent of Israel’s oil comes from Iran.
Kissinger’s meeting with the Shah will follow his meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in Geneva Sunday and Monday. The State Department said it would not comment on any aspect of the discussions the Secretary of State is now holding in the Middle East.
(Kissinger returned tonight to Jerusalem and reported that while Egypt rejects the Israeli notion of a non-belligerency pact it is interested in a more modest partial settlement. See story P.3)
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