Word: assad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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SYRIA has been at political odds with the Baghdad government off and on for several years. President Hafez Assad has accused Saddam Hussein of starting a conflict that distracts Arab energies from the real war, i.e., against Israel. Worried about both his isolation and his vulnerability, Assad in recent months has accused Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia of backing subversives who want to overthrow his regime. On a visit to Moscow last week, he signed a 20-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev similar to the one that Moscow has with Iraq. The Kremlin...
...Saddam Hussein, the Soviets were still on record as being Iraq's principal military supplier. They had also hedged their bets by firming up relations with a potentially useful client in Syria. The Soviets have been Syria's principal arms source since the late '50s, but Assad until now had carefully refused to formalize relations in a treaty. As it stands, the treaty substantially enhances Soviet options in the Middle East and calls for the two countries "to cooperate and coordinate their positions" in the event of a threat to either party...
...only regional Arab state to support Iran was Syria. Relations between the two Baathist regimes in Baghdad and Damascus have long been antagonistic; Syrian President Hafez Assad is known to believe that dissident elements within his country are backed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. Like Iran, Syria views the gulf war as an American-backed plot that could lead to its encirclement by conservative Arab forces. Thus the war has intensified Syria's already nearly paranoiac feeling of isolation. Assad, who in the past has rejected any formal treaty links with the Soviet Union, is scheduled to visit...
Rarely has a marriage between nations been arranged so quickly. On Sept. 1, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi sounded out Syrian President Hafez Assad on the question of merger. A week later, Assad flew off to Tripoli to discuss details; two days after that the deal was struck. According to a 13-point proclamation issued in Tripoli and Damascus, the two leaders had agreed to form a "political, economic, military and cultural union" that would become "the base for confronting the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland and the liberation of Palestine...
While Gaddafi and Assad were talking merger last week, the Egyptians and Israelis were inching their way back toward negotiations on Palestinian autonomy. The two sides had earlier agreed to resume the talks and to hold another summit conference, probably in Washington, some time after the U.S. elections. Last week Israel's Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir flew to Alexandria to see President Anwar Sadat and discuss existing differences. The Israelis have hinted that as a good-will gesture to Egypt and the U.S., they may release some Palestinian political prisoners and Prime Minister Menachem Begin may postpone the transfer...