Egyptian Visits Israel, Calls for Mideast Talks

Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid on Monday urged Israel to help convene an international Middle East peace conference this year, but Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir suggested a regional conference instead.

Meguid, the first Egyptian leader to visit the Jewish state since Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, told reporters on arrival that an international parley is the only way to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In two hours of meetings, Shamir told Meguid he believes an international parley would be useless and instead suggested a regional peace conference at which Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Palestinian Arabs would meet, a Shamir aide said.

Shamir’s idea is similar to talks on Palestinian autonomy outlined in the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel and rejected by most of the Arab world.

Bid to Aid Peres

Meguid’s visit is seen as a bid to help Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres win support for a U.N.-sponsored conference, opposed by Shamir who views it as a Soviet-inspired scheme to force Israel to give up occupied Arab land.

“We are counting on the Israeli government and people to stand together and support our endeavors to resume this very year the process of conciliation and peace settlement,” Meguid said at the start of his three-day visit.

“We must seize without delay the unique opportunity presently afforded us for achieving real progress on the peace process. The only way to reach that end is through the convening of an international conference,” he said.

Peres told reporters after an hourlong meeting with Meguid that he differed with Egypt over the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization at a parley. “We do not see exactly eye to eye over the PLO,” he said.

Israel refuses to include the organization in negotiations, while Egypt has sought to bring the PLO into talks by bridging the group’s rift with Jordan.