Ben Bella To Meet Moroccan King

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30274, 29 October 1963, Page 15

Ben Bella To Meet Moroccan King

<N ALGIERS, October 28. President Ahmed Ben Bella is due. to fly. to Bamako, Mali, today for Tuesday’s summit meeting with King Hassan II of Morocco on the MoroccanAlgerian frontier dispute, according to well-informed sources in Algiers. In Rabat, Morocco, officials said King Hassan would fly to Bamako tomorrow morning with his Foreign Minister, (Mr Ahmed Balafrej).

The summit meeting, which is expected to be attended by President Modibo Keita of Mali and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, follows days of anxious consultation and counter proposals. The Emperor is expected to fly from Paris to Bamako. Meanwhile, fighting is said to be continuing round Hassi Beida and Tinjoub, the desert oases where shooting between Moroccan and Algerian troops began earlier this month. In Rabat, Moroccan officials are said to have expressed willingness, to accept a ceasefire in the desert warfare. President Keita is expected to press for one when the two sides meet, according to Mali sources in Rabat.

President Ben Bella is said in Algiers to be going to Bamako in no mood for an easy compromise. Algeria rushed reinforcements to the Algerian-Moroc-can border today in spite of the announcement of the four-nation meeting tomorrow to try to solve the dispute. the British United Press reported. Algerians Killed Moroccan military officials in Marrakesh said that 60 Algerians were killed yesterday when they tried to recapture Hassi Beida. One hundred more were taken prisoner, and more than 100 small arms were seized when the Algerians fled from their positions.

“The prisoners are dead tired and fed up with war,” a Moroccan officer said. The Moroccan troops were said to have sweot 18 miles south-east from Hassi Beida towards Tinfouchi, where fighting was reported on Saturday.

Algiers Radio said last night that Algerian troops launched a new offensive in the disputed area. It claimed the Moroccans were being scattered.

There is no indication in Algiers that a cease-fire will be declared before the conference opens at Bamako. President Ben Bella said in a television interview broad-

cast in Washington yesterday that peace would come to the Algerian-Moroccan border only when the Moroccans “evacuate our territory.” the Associated Press reported. Mr Ben Bella, whose interview with a Columbia Broadcasting System correspondent was filmed in Algeria on Thursday, was asked about the prospects for peace. He replied: "It will depend entirely on what the Moroccans want. If they . . .

evacuate our territory, the fighting will come to an end. If they don’t ... the fighting wilt carry on.” The Algerian President charged that Morocco bad attacked his country partly because of hostility to his Socialist regime, and partly because of the possible existence of iron and oil deposits in the contested border region. Mr Ben Bella said Algeria welcomed foreign investment, particularly in the fields of oil and gas exploration. "These are particular fields in which we need foreign investments in order to be able to exploit this richness.” he said. He also said that the recent rebellion by Berbers in the Kabylia mountains "is

finished once and for aH. . . . AU the men responsible . . . have come to see me and declared they were ready to put themselves at the disposal of the country," be said.