The World : Egypt Said to Regain Taba

An international panel of arbitrators has decided to return to Egypt a tiny Red Sea beachfront known as Taba to settle a six-year-old border dispute with Israel, according to Israeli news reports. The newspapers Davar and Hadashot quoted senior Israeli officials as saying that the five panel members made their decision three weeks ago in Geneva. Israel, which gained control of the 700-yard strip, site of a luxury hotel, in the 1967 Six-Day War, has held onto it despite returning the rest of the Sinai to Egypt in 1982. The two sides agreed to submit the dispute to binding arbitration in 1986. The panel includes Swiss, French, Swedish, Israeli and Egyptian representatives. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman called the newspaper reports premature and refused to comment.