Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency release of Foreign Broadcast Information Service coverage of the Middle East peace talks from December 1977. It collects British, Israeli and Soviet press and radio items on President as-Sadat's initiative and the planned Cairo conference. It also covers Prime Minister Begin's visit to London, Secretary of State Vance's regional tour and the Knesset debate on the peace plan. It contains no material on unidentified aerial phenomena.
“Cairo”42 pages
PPROVED FOR RELEASE CIA HISTORICAL.COLLECTIONS DIVISION AR 70-14 13NOV2Q13 V. 27 Dec 77 D 20 EGYPT , [Begin--in English] And now I will translate whatever I said in Hebrew into English, with a Hebrew accent. I was asked what was going to be the future of Israel and the Middle East when peace is reigning. And I answered, firs:t, the visit of President as-Sadat to Jerusalem was a great historic event, a turning point, and this is being appreciated by all the Israeli people, by the Egyptian people, and actually by all nations. When peace is established, there will be a great future for Israel, for Egypt, for all the nations of the Middle East, which is being called rightly so the cradle of human civilization, and it may turn, through cooperation and development, as his majesty the king of Morocco said, into a paradise on earth. So we believe that now peace is the real condition for such development, and we hope that soon it will come. [Question] [Name indistinct] , CBS news. Mr President, Mr Prime Minister, now that you raised the level of your discussions, how do you see the continuing role of the United States? Will you, for instance, be inviting Secretary of State Vance to take part in some of your talks? And is there somewhere down the road still a possible role for the Soviet Union in this process? [As-Sadat] Well, we have agreed upon the participation of the United States and the United Nations in the political committee. But the military committee will be bilateral. Well, as for the United States, they will be in the political committee with us. The Soviet Union, we didn't exclude him here. He excluded himself. Whenever he finds it agreeable to him, well, we have no objection from our side. [Question] Mr President, 'Asim 'Abd al-Muhsim, REUTER news agency. We have heard that Egypt will call an Arab summit at one stage to inform it of the outcome of this process. Will this Arab summit be called after the Ismailia talks and will the parties which have not attended the first round of the Cairo conference be invited to the second round once the conference has been upgraded to ministerial level? Thank you. [As-Sadat] Well, for the first part, you have asked about? [Question] The Arab summit. [As-Sadat] The Arab summit, yes. Until we reach in the committees an agreement upon the main issues and, namely, the Palestinian issue, on which we have differed, until we reach this point and, as I said, as it is part of our Arab strategy, I shall not be in a position to, I mean, ask for an Arab summit meeting. But whenever we reach this, I think after that I shall be in' a position to discuss with my Arab colleagues the possibility of a summit. [Question] [Name indistinct] of the ABC news. Mr President, since your return from Jerusalem, you have said a number of times: I have made my move; now it is up to the Israelis. I wonder if you feel that the proposals brought by Mr Begin contain sufficient concessions to have justified your trip to Jerusalem and also to justify the summit? [As-Sadat] Well, we have agreed upon certain points and I said we have made progress on the withdrawal. We have differed among us on certain points, namely,. the Palestinian question. The proposals that have been made by Premier Begin, as I told you, will be put before the committees politically or militarily and our counterproposals will be submitted to these committees. I think until we reach this, we feel that the momentum that we have given to the peace process really is continuing. Yes. [Question) Could you categorize those proposals? What do you think of them?
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 65 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.