MIDDLE EAST: Down to the Last 2%

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Israel, Egypt and the U.S. begin peace treaty talks

In the blue-gray uniform of Egypt's supreme commander, President Anwar Sadat last week commemorated the fifth anniversary of the October War with an impressive military review in the desert west of the Suez Canal. A bagpipe band skirled It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary, as MiG-21 fighters screamed overhead, and 10,000 Egyptian troops—accompanied by a stunning array of military hardware—paraded under a blistering sun. It was one of modern Egypt's most imposing military displays. Nonetheless, the message was that Anwar Sadat was ready to wage peace, not war—albeit from a position of strength.

Sadat is wholeheartedly committed to the negotiations that are scheduled to begin in Washington this Thursday. In fulfillment of the Camp David pledges, Israeli and Egyptian delegations will convene for talks that could lead to a full-fledged peace treaty between the two adversaries by the end of the year. In fact, all sides were hopeful that negotiations would be completed in time to sign the treaty on Nov. 19, the first anniversary of Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem. Some Israeli officials claim now that 98% of the issues to be discussed have already been resolved. Sadat, praising President Carter as a leader "who changed the face of history from bitterness to love and from war to peace," invited his Camp David host to attend the treaty signing. The President immediately accepted, although one of the matters still to be decided is where the event will take place.

Indeed, it was Washington that had to resolve the basic issue of where and when the talks would be held. Egypt had proposed Ismailia, the town on the Suez Canal where Sadat met with Israeli Premier Menachem Begin last December; Israel wanted at least some of the talks to be held on its soil and suggested the Negev capital of Beersheba. Carter finally proposed Washington as a compromise. Shortly after the Camp David summit ended, the Egyptians suggested that talks might begin on Oct. 11—which is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Remembering that Egypt had started the 1973 war on Yom Kippur, the Israelis refused. Washington tactfully proposed Oct. 12.

The Israeli delegation will be headed by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, while the Egyptian delegation will be led by Lieut. General Kamal Hassan Ali, Sadat's newly appointed Defense Minister. Meeting at Blair House, across the street from the White House, the participants will divide into working groups to hammer out military and diplomatic procedures.

The agenda, defined by the Camp David accords, will deal with points related to the normalization of relations between the two countries. For the Egyptians, the major problem is the schedule of Israeli military withdrawal from the Sinai. In addition, the exact parameters of demilitarized zones and the stationing of U.N. peacekeeping troops will have to be settled. So will the status of U.S. monitoring stations that have been operating in the Sinai since the interim accord of 1975.