Scheel Says Arabs Desire Early Peace, Ready to Make Concessions

Foreign Minister Walter School who returned here Friday from six days of talks with Arab leaders in Egypt. Jordan and Lebanon, declared in an interview published yesterday in the Cologne Express that the governments of those countries strongly desire an early peace and “are ready to make concessions.” School reported that in his talks with the Arab leaders he had stressed West Germany’s “neutrality in the Middle East conflict” and the “balance of our Middle East policy.”

He said that Israel was going too far in demanding a settlement outside internal organizations. “One must understand the fact that the Arabs, who are the underdogs, do not want to enter negotiations with the victors alone and unprotected,” he said. “One must see whether other ways are open,” School said, adding that he thought it would be useful if the whole problem could be kept within the United Nations.

School made similar remarks in a television appearance and another newspaper interview since his return from the Middle East. They drew a sharp attack in the Bundestag over the weekend from Erik Blumenfeld of Hamburg, a member of the opposition Christian Democratic Union and a member of the German-Israel Society. Blumenfeld said it was incredible that Bonn could adopt a neutral stance when the survival of Israel was at stake. He censured School for stressing West Germany’s balance and neutrality which he claimed was the kind of diplomacy that could raise misunderstandings in the minds of Arab leaders about West Germany’s attitude.

Blumenfeld’s criticism was rejected on behalf of the government by Transport Minister Lauritz Lauritzen who said it would be wrong for Germany to be partial to one side or the other in the Middle East conflict.

LARGE POWERS IN GENERAL ACCORD ON MIDEAST

Scheel said in an interview published Sunday in the weekly, “Welt Am Sonntag,” that he thought renewed warfare between the Arabs and Israel was highly unlikely. He said his recent talks with President Nixon, Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid, I. Brezhnev and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko indicated that both superpowers agreed on some points in their assessment of the Middle East situation. He said the U.S. and the USSR both saw a peaceful solution as the only way out of the conflict and each acknowledged that neither could derive any benefit from new hostilities.

Scheel said he had the impression from Brezhnev and Gromyko that the Soviet Union wanted a lasting peace in the Middle East through political means. He stressed that Germany did not want a mediator’s role but was ready to throw its political and economic weight into the balance in order to help find a just and lasting solution together with its partners in the European community.

Scheel said that in his talks with Arab leaders he explained, and the Arabs were well aware, that West Germany maintains good relations with Israel which have a “special character” arising “from the terrible past under which Jews and Germans have suffered in this century.”