Word: cairo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...heightened diplomatic activity in the Middle East. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy, who had hastened to Beirut to investigate the Sept. 20 truck bombing of the U.S. embassy, turned his trip into an impromptu regional tour. After spending a day in the Lebanese capital, Murphy visited Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo and Amman on what he called a "mission of exploration." Murphy was primarily seeking a way to speed a withdrawal of the 22,000 Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir said last week that he would like the U.S. to act as an intermediary with Syria...
Meanwhile, Hussein was finding his own reasons for renewing links with Cairo. Eternally suspicious of Syria's Assad, he grew increasingly alarmed as Syria attempted to supplant Egypt as the most influential Arab power. Hussein was especially angered by what he considered to be Syria's attempt to gain control of the movement for Palestinian nationalism. In May 1983, Damascus fueled the fires of revolt within the Palestine Liberation Organization against its leader, Yasser Arafat. Then last November, Syria encouraged Palestinian rebels to besiege Arafat in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli. The P.L.O. chief finally escaped...
Seeking to develop an axis of moderate Arab nations that could counterbalance Syria's power, Hussein began reaching out to Egypt. Last December, Amman signed a trade agreement with Cairo, reducing import barriers between the two countries. Meanwhile, Arafat met with both Mubarak and Hussein; by July, he had sufficiently rebuilt his authority within the P.L.O. to call a Palestine National Council meeting for Sept. 25 in Algiers. Assad, alarmed that Arafat might use the occasion to diminish the Syrian leader's influence in the P.L.O., flew to Algiers last month to pressure Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid into...
...Recognize Egypt campaign would be Saudi Arabia, whose prestige and caution make it a nation that many neighbors would be willing to follow. TIME'S Philip Finnegan reports that for the past two years Saudi Arabian officials have been holding secret talks with the Egyptians in Cairo and Riyadh. The meetings have covered topics ranging from the Iran-Iraq conflict to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Yet even if Saudi Arabia were inclined to renew bonds with Egypt, it would most probably work in harmony with the other gulf states...
...send on a side trip to Damascus: as U.S. Ambassador to Syria from 1974 to 1978, he developed a personal friendship with Assad. The two men talked for more than two hours before Murphy flew to Jerusalem, where he conferred with Peres for an hour. After seeing Mubarak in Cairo and lunching with Hussein in Amman, Murphy returned to Damascus on Friday. He met with Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, Assad's chief trouble-shooter in Lebanon, then went to Beirut for another round with President Amin Gemayel...