Arabs Embrace Problems

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30856, 15 September 1965, Page 17

Arabs Embrace Problems

(XZ.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

CASABLANCA, September 14.

Arab leaders today prepared to embrace world problems—the Indo-Pakistan conflict, Vietnam, disarmament and the problems of trade and development.

The call for the leaders to broaden their scope came from Egypt's President Nasser at the third Arab summit conference being held in Casablanca.

In his opening address, President Nasser said: “The general movement of the Arab nations is not taking place on another planet. “Consequently we are a part of the world and we are one of its effective powers,” he said. The conference opened last night with an open rift between Tunisia and the rest of the Arab world. Memo Rejected

Foreign ministers, meeting in an emergency session just before the conference began, rejected a memorandum from President Habib Bourguiba explaining his decision to boycott their meeting. In it, the Tunisian leader accused Egypt of having engineered plots throughout the Arab world to enforce her policies. In particular, the United Arab Republic had launched “a mud-slinging campaign” against Tunisia when she refused to follow Cairo’s unilateral lead in severing relations with West Germany earlier this year, the President charged. The Foreign Ministers refused to accept the 17-page memorandum, circulated in, Casablanca yesterday, as a| conference document or even to pass it on to their Heads' of State, a conference communique announced. Later Arab Heads of Stated apparently agreed not to dwell I on inter-Arab disputes. All speakers at last night’s | opening session avoided any;

reference to the absence of Tunisia, in spite of President Bourguiba’s memorandum. Mr Mongi Slim, Tunisia’s Secretary of State, who has been lobbying delegates to explain his country’s stand, last

1 night brushed aside the t Foreign Ministers’ rejection. “This does not concern us, > it concerns them,” he told > Reuter, adding that he would ■ continue his contacts with : delegations.