Israel expects US to push autonomy talks forward

Israeli officials said Monday they expect US envoy Sol M. Linowitz to speed up his search for common ground between Israeli and Egyptian plans for Palestinian autonomy during talks in London starting Feb. 26. Officials here feel that shifting the site of the talks to neutral ground will reduce pressures from the news media which normally build up around the autonomy talks when held in Egypt or Israel. And Mr. Linowitz has shown that he prefers informal negotiations in hotel rooms rather than the set-speech atmosphere of the plenary conference table.