- Geneva Conference (1973)
The Geneva Conference of 1973 was an attempt to negotiate a solution to the
Arab-Israeli conflict as called for inUN Security Council Resolution 338 which was passed after the1973 Arab-Israeli War . It opened on21 December 1973 . TheUnited States and theUSSR were the primary non-Middle Eastern countries involved at the conference. No comprehensive agreement was reached, and attempts in later years to revive the Conference failed.Egypt's goals
By Sadat's time, the
Egyptians were disassociating themselves fromArab nationalism and from radical regimes in the region.Egypt discouraged the participation of those nations in the Geneva Conference. The Egyptians' primary goal was to win back the territory they lost in1967 to Israel in theSix-Day War under presidentGamal Abdel Nasser . This was their goal during theYom Kippur War just prior to the conference and the goal during theCamp David Accords in 1978.Palestinian representation issue
The Egyptians, Americans, Jordanians, and the Soviets hoped that through the conference, some sort of international agreement on the Palestinian problem and on which specific persons would be their representative in international affairs would be developed. Egypt was in favor of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to represent the Palestinians and to join Egypt, Israel, the United States, and other established nations in the Geneva Conference. Syrian officials went one step further and insisted that if the PLO was not present at the Geneva Conference, Syria would not be present either (Eran, 129). Israel and the United States opposed formal recognition of the PLO at the Geneva Conference because at the time, the PLO did not recognizeIsrael's right to exist (Meital, 145-146). Thus, no representatives from Syrian were present at the conference either (Eran, 129).See also
*
Sinai Interim Agreement
*History of the Arab-Israeli conflict
*Peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict References
*Eran, Oded. "Arab-Israel Peacemaking." "The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East". Ed.
Avraham Sela . New York: Continuum, 2002.
*Meital, Yoram. "Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967-1977".
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