Comment On Nasser’s Soviet Visit

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28551, 2 April 1958, Page 13

Comment On Nasser’s Soviet Visit

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, April 1. “Colonel Nasser these days is in a position of an eligible bachelor during the London season. Invitations are piling up on his mat,” says the Beirut correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian,” referring to Colonel Nasser’s projected visit to Moscow. The correspondent recalls that President Nasser has already promised to visit Italy this summer as well as Greece and Syria, and that reports from Cairo suggest he may take the opportunity to see other Iron Curtain capitals and perhaps Jugoslavia. The correspondent says that in his relations with Moscow, Colonel Nasser has continued to take all the assistance the Soviet Government is prepared to offer, while at the same time suppressing communism inside Egypt and, lately, inside Syria as well. The Egyptian economy is now closely linked with that of the Soviet Union, which has taken Britain's place as Egypt's princi-

pal trade partner. “It the visit comes off, next month will find Colonel Nasser, who won his Suez gamble and has since added Syria to his dominions. is in a far stronger position than before. "Whatever else comes out of the visit, it is most unlikely that it will mark any relaxation of the domestic control imposed on communism into the United Arab Republic, although the economic future of both regions of the republic is now dependent on continued Soviet aid. The Beirut correspondent of the New York “Herald Tribune" says that the invitation for Colonel Nasser to go to Moscow caught Western diplomats by surprise as it came at a time when fie seemed to be making overtures for closer relations with the West. "Speculation is centred not so much on why Colonel Nasser chose the Soviet Union for his first formal visit to a Big Power, as around the timing. "One theory was that the Russians were threatening to revise development programmes

for Egypt and Syria. "There are reasons to believe that the Soviet is not happy about the formation of a United Arab Republic, which had apparently halted the drift of Syria towards the Communist camp and resulted in the dissolution of all political parties in Syria—including the Communists.” The Cairo correspondent of "The Times" says that although the Soviet Union has extended its official blessing to the Arab Republic, observers have noticed a certain lack of enthusiasm in the Russian response to Colonel Nasser's coup. This correspondent suggests that Colonel Nasser is determined to remain free, if he can, of the Communist clutch. “He would like to come to terms economically with the West." says "The Times" correspondent.