Word: tripoli
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...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...
...Whatever they may say in Tripoli," reported TIME Correspondent William Stewart, "the mood in Cairo is still upbeat. Last week Sadat told a visiting delegation of 50 Bedouin chiefs from Sinai that during next year's Feast of Sacrifice, "we shall pray together in the heart of Sinai-there will be no more defeats, no going back. I shall pursue this call for peace.' (During this year's feast, Sadat prayed at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque.) Sadat's office is inundated with pledges of support from around the country. In the streets of Cairo...
...precisely this possibility, that Sadat might make a separate deal with Israel, that both angers and frightens the radical Arabs. At the start of the Tripoli summit, Libya's Gaddafi said to P.L.O. Leader Yasser Arafat: "I told you all along that Sadat was not a man to trust. Now you know that I was right." Arafat shook his head in silent acquiescence. Without Saudi backing, Sadat simply could not sign such a peace agreement and hope to keep his stature as a leader within the Arab world. In Cairo, however, some diplomats last week were speculating about...