Word: hafez
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...extension of unconditional loan guarantees on the peace process. Arabs are convinced that any such guarantees will go toward the settling of Soviet Jews in the occupied territories, whether they are applied directly to that purpose or simply free up other Israeli funds for settlement construction. Syria's President Hafez Assad might refuse to attend the peace conference, taking Jordan and the Palestinians with him. "This is a classic lose-lose proposition," says a senior Administration official. "If the bill provides for guarantees without conditions, we lose the Arabs. If it provides for guarantees with conditions, we lose the Israelis...
Syria, facing the future without its own longtime sponsor, the Soviet Union, also needs friends in the West and has signed on to the U.S. plan for a regional peace conference. President Hafez Assad has apparently decided to move to negotiations in hopes of reclaiming the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. "He can do that a lot more effectively through diplomacy than terrorism," says a Western official...
...would choose the sword so soon after the end of Iraq's eight-year conflict with Iran. In fact, Saddam's bellicosity ("O God almighty, be witness that we have warned them") was barely noted. The big news from the Middle East was the possibility that Syria's Hafez Assad might finally be serious about negotiating with Israel's Yitzhak Shamir...
Baker arrived in Israel again last week after a visit to Syria, where he picked up President Hafez Assad's formal acceptance of Washington's proposal for a conference. Jordan and Lebanon had also quickly fallen into line. Egypt was on board from the start, and Saudi Arabia and the gulf states had promised to join talks on regional problems such as water supplies and arms control...
Syrian President Hafez Assad ordinarily is no one's idea of a cooperative statesman, not with his record as a bloodily repressive dictator. But Assad is shrewd enough to sense which way the winds of world power are blowing. So last week he accepted the American formula for a Middle East peace conference. That, in effect, made him the first Arab leader since Egypt's Anwar Sadat to agree to public, direct peace talks with Israel: that is what the conference is supposed to lead to, after a brief ceremonial opening...