Jerusalem, July 20: The Egyptian President, Mr. Anwar Sadat, contacted U.S. officials with the intent of seeking a reopening of the Suez canal and a political settlement with Israel, the ‘Jerusalem Post’ said to-day, quoting diplomatic sources. The newspaper said that Mr. Sadat instructed his aides to seek a top-level meeting with American officials. The request may have been conveyed to the chief U.S. representative in Cairo, Mr. Joseph Greene, by the President’s National Security Adviser, Mr. Hafes Ismail. “The sources added that Mr. Sadat’s immediate aim is to seek an early re-opening of the Suez canal, evidently under a partial settlement with Israel”, the newspaper said. It quoted the diplomatic sources as saying that Mr. Sadat had informed the Central Committee of the Arab Socialist Union, Egypt’s only political party, of his renewed contacts with the Americans, at the same meeting at which he announced the ouster of the Soviet advisers. “The sources said that Mr Sadat also told the Central Committee that he would now seek a political settlement in the Middle East conflict”, the Post said. In Washington, U.S. officials saw the seeds of a resumption of Arab-Israeli peace talks in President Sadat’s decision to remove Soviet military advisers and experts from Egypt.
