Word: assads
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...have destroyed, any hope that Philip Habib, Reagan's special Middle East envoy, could find a solution to the crisis over Syria's antiaircraft missiles in Lebanon. Last week Habib continued his round-robin shuttle, conferring first with Saudi officials in Riyadh, then with Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus, next with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Jerusalem and at week's end with the Saudis again. As usual, Habib was tight-lipped about his negotiations, but Begin announced that Israel was determined to destroy the missiles if diplomacy did not remove them, and he warned...
There were indications that an Arab-initiated solution for the missile confrontation was still being zealously pursued. Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam made a quick trip to Saudi Arabia carrying a message from Assad to King Khalid. It was the third such exchange in the past two weeks about the specifics of an arrangement to persuade the Syrians to remove their missiles in return for some modification of the Israelis' reconnaissance flights over Lebanon. To sweeten the deal, the Saudis are reported to have already delivered $1 billion of a $4 billion economic and financial package to Damascus...
...very fact that Assad had not yet backed down in the face of the Israeli threats and the Habib peace mission enhanced his standing with the Arab states, which were rallying to his support against Israel. The Arabs were still concerned about Syria's ties to the Soviet Union, which supplied the SA-6 missiles that were the cause of contention. At their summit meeting, Sadat said that he and Begin had a "full understanding," in the words of the Prime Minister, about the dangers of the Soviets' getting a firmer foothold in the Middle East...
...Saudi plan has been previously reported to involve two parts: 1) up to $4 billion in economic aid to Syria, which would bolster the regime of President Hafez Assad and go far to alleviate Syria's isolation in the Arab world; and 2) the addition of Saudi and perhaps Kuwaiti troops to the Arab Deterrent Force, now all Syrian, that entered Lebanon in 1976 under a peace-keeping mandate from the Arab League. The diversification of troops would assuage charges by right-wing Lebanese Christians that the Syrians have become an occupation army...
...Damascus, Assad took the unusual step of calling in U.S. reporters for a two-hour interview, his first since the missile tension began, to "address the American public." Assad had P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat waiting in an anteroom as he explained that Syria had deployed the missiles "only after Israel committed direct aggression against us, attacking our helicopters, which carried food provisions to our troops in Lebanon." He charged that Israel's use of airspace over Lebanon was illegal. "Will Israel give Lebanon free access to its airspace? Will Israel allow Lebanese planes to carry out reconnaissance missions...