Israel, Egypt OK Plan for Taba Dispute : Tentative Accord May Pave Way for Peres, Mubarak Summit

Egypt and Israel announced a tentative agreement Sunday on a formula for resolving their border dispute over a strip of Sinai Peninsula beach, thereby raising hopes for an early thaw in the “cold peace” that has characterized their relations over the last four years.

Calling for international arbitration to resolve the dispute, the two sides said they agreed on a set of procedures to resolve some fine points still to be worked out, they hope, within the “next two to three weeks.”

Although the draft agreement leaves the two countries still far from a final resolution of the festering border dispute, Israeli negotiator Avraham Tamir said it prepares the way for a first summit meeting, possibly in early September, between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Reuters news agency reported.

Mubarak’s View

Mubarak has said often that an arbitration agreement would unlock the door to talks with Peres.

The dispute is over Taba, a small resort area on the Gulf of Aqaba and the only Sinai land not returned to Egypt under the terms of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. The agreement is subject to approval by both governments before it can be signed, and no additional steps to improve relations are expected until then.

Despite several intensive days of U.S.-mediated talks and what was described by sources close to the negotiations as heavy U.S. pressure, the two sides have not yet agreed on the makeup of the arbitration team that will eventually decide the border dispute.

Several prickly technical questions relating to border surveys and other mechanical issues covered in a lengthy annex to the main agreement also were left unresolved and could still prove troublesome, Egyptian officials cautioned.

‘It’s Not Finished’

“It’s not finished until it’s signed,” said Nabil Arabi, the head of the Egyptian delegation, who added that “nothing has been signed; nothing has been initialed yet.”

Another round of talks will open in Israel on Tuesday, when the negotiators try to select three neutral arbiters to flesh out a five-man arbitration team whose Egyptian and Israeli members have already been chosen.

Arabi added that the negotiators, who have been chipping away at the seemingly intractable Taba dispute for the past 15 months, have now completed all “the substantive work on the delegate level” and that “now it’s up to the governments to decide.”

Two Questions Remain

A communique issued after the latest round of talks said the two sides have “completed work on a draft arbitral compromise with the exception of selecting names of non-national arbitrators and technical elaboration of the annex. . . . They will strive to complete these two issues within two to three weeks.”

In the meantime, the communique said, the draft compromise will be submitted to the Egyptian and Israeli governments for approval. “After approval by the governments, and with the conclusion of the field work and the selection of the arbitrators, the draft compromise will be subject to signature by the parties,” the communique said.

Taba, a 250-acre, pie-shaped sliver of prime beachfront on the gulf--an arm of the Red Sea--is part of the territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War. Israel retained the area, now the site of an Israeli-built luxury hotel, when it gave back the rest of the Sinai to Egypt in 1982 under the terms of their treaty.

Since then, Taba’s return has been demanded by Cairo as a condition for normalizing relations, frozen when Egypt withdrew its ambassador to Israel to protest the September, 1982, massacre in Beirut of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Christian militiamen allied with Israel.

Although the narrow strip of sand is not too important in itself, the dispute has evolved into a highly emotional issue and one that has become deeply mired in political machinations on both sides.

In Israel, the debate over Taba has become linked with the rivalry between Prime Minister Peres’ Labor Alignment and the right-wing Likud Bloc of Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who will trade jobs with Peres in a scheduled government rotation in October. Solving the Taba problem before the rotation could strengthen Peres and improve his chances of winning early elections should he decide to force them, political analysts have noted.

Attacks on Mubarak

In Egypt, resurgent leftist and Muslim fundamentalist movements have used the issue of Taba as a means of attacking the peace treaty with Israel and, indirectly, the moderate, pro-Western posture of President Mubarak, who badly needs Taba back as a way of vindicating his government’s foreign policies.

For the United States, the mediator in the dispute, a settlement is also important as a means of preserving its major contributions thus far to Middle East peace--the 1978 Camp David accords and their offspring, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Failure to resolve the dispute, Washington fears, is likely to further chill the uneasy peace between its two major allies in the Middle East and give ammunition to Arab radicals who argue that Israel cannot be trusted to live up to its treaty commitments.

Although the Taba talks, held alternately in Egypt and Israel, have been dragging on for nearly a year and a half, pressure to reach a settlement crested this month because of the approaching government rotation in Israel.

‘Make-or-Break Month’

“There’s a general feeling that if Taba cannot be resolved under Peres, it will never be resolved under Shamir,” one source close to the negotiations said. “Given the time it will take both Cabinets to approve an agreement, August is really the make-or-break month.”

In addition, Washington also badly wanted an agreement in time for Vice President George Bush to announce during his recent visit to the Middle East. Although that did not happen, Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy remained in Cairo after Bush’s departure in the hopes of midwifing an agreement. After Sunday’s announcement of a tentative accord, Murphy flew to Israel to consult with Peres.

While the agreement still leaves several issues unresolved--issues that could delay its signing--sources close to the talks said major progress was achieved over the weekend, when both sides finally agreed on a package of about 10 technical but thorny issues relating to the troublesome annex.

Agreement on Maps

Chief among these was agreement on the maps to be appended to the accord for use of the arbitrators--a sensitive subject, since most of the maps clearly show Taba as being on the Egyptian side of the border.

“A whole host of miserable but outstanding little issues were resolved,” one source close to the talks said, “and we now have a completed compromise, with all the major facets in place. . . . It is a major step forward.”

While the Taba negotiators choose three neutral arbitrators from a secret list of about 30 candidates, Egyptian, Israeli and U.S. technical teams will begin surveying the border, with the Egyptians and Israelis preparing their rival claims for the arbitration team to decide upon. The arbitration process is expected to take 18 months, but Egypt has promised to send its ambassador back to Israel as soon as the arbitration compromise is signed.