Word: assads
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Embarking on what he called "a mission that may be impossible," Jordan's King Hussein made quick visits to Damascus and Cairo. His aim was to narrow the distance between Sadat and Syria's President Hafez Assad, but there was no evidence that he had made much progress. Assad was also doing some lobbying. After meeting with Hussein, he flew to Riyadh, Kuwait and other gulf states in an effort to talk them out of giving further support to Sadat...
Arab solidarity was indeed in tatters. Sadat's mission had been blessed by the moderate regimes of Morocco, Tunisia and the Sudan. His bankrollers, the Saudis (see box), at least did not say no. But the visit to Israel was denounced by Syrian President Hafez Assad, the Soviet Union, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the main rejection-front states, Iraq, Libya and Algeria. Last week the anti-Sadat forces gathered in Tripoli at the behest of Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, who called the participants the "steadfast states." (Others dubbed the conference the "sorehead summit.") A second meeting...
...attitude of Syria's Assad will have much to do with what happens next. He willingly attended the Tripoli summit, which was held in the lavish Arabian Nights-style People's Hall that once served as the Libyan capital's royal palace. Assad was under strong pressure to become a member of an enlarged rejection front implacably hostile to any negotiations with Israel. Expectations were that he would, in the end, refuse the overtures. For one thing", the ideological gap between Iraq and Syria, which are governed by rival branches of the socialist Baath Party...
...Assad said as much at a Damascus press conference before flying off to Tripoli. Between Egypt and Syria, he said, there might be "disagreements on methods and perhaps on certain actions or incidents-but divorce between two brother countries, never." There was another small sign last week that Assad has not given up on Geneva. Without Syrian objection, the U.N. Security Council approved a six-month extension of the truce-observer force on the Golan Heights...
Most Western observers in Tripoli believe Assad joined the conference not to adopt the rejectionists' stance but to persuade them to modify and soften their attitude toward a peace settlement. The Syrian President is apparently convinced that the radicals can come to some sort of agreement that will counter what one of his aides calls "the present drift toward surrender." But any such agreement, as far as Assad is concerned, will have to rest on the premise that peace is the goal and war the last-ditch alternative. Depending on how the final summit declaration is worded, Assad...