FBIS Coverage of the Middle East Peace Talks: 1977 December

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?