Word: damascus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...later stage. Instead, Vance found, the King was determined to remain an uncommitted moderating force, but would probably be prepared to join a Geneva Conference later. Lebanese President Elias Sarkis was swamped with his country's own post-civil war problems. In 4½ hrs. of talks in Damascus, Syria's Hafez Assad reiterated his view that Sadat's initiative would fail, that the Arabs were obliged to reject it on almost theological grounds, and that the "great wound" inflicted by Sadat's Jerusalem adventure would take time to heal...
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...
...former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who has long advocated a step-by-step approach to a final settlement. The possible steps: an Israeli-Egyptian accommodation; then an Israeli agreement with Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the moderate Palestinians; and finally a settlement with Syria triggered by a hint to Damascus -and to Moscow-that would say, in effect: "We're making progress, and if you want to be included, you'd better get moving...
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...
...economic and political alliance in the Middle East that would unite Egypt's markets and manpower, Israel's expertise and technology and Saudi Arabia's oil money. Curiously, the Syrians also had the same dream-but in the form of a nightmare. Last week Damascus officials were worried that a peace agreement might lead to a predatory kind of Zionist expansionism, with Israel seeking Middle East markets for consumer goods produced by cheap Arab labor...