NASSER’S PROBLEMS Secret Flight To Moscow Reported

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32210, 31 January 1970, Page 11

NASSER’S PROBLEMS Secret Flight To Moscow Reported

(N.Z. Pr«»» Association—Copyright) BEIRUT, January 30. President Nasser flew secretly to Moscow last week for four days of talks with Soviet Union leaders, according to information reaching Beirut from diplomatic sources in Cairo, the New York Times News Service reports.

The President’s flight, it is said, was hurriedly arranged after the Israeli attack on the island of Shadwan, at the entrance to the Gulf of Suez.

A Russian aircraft is said to have flown to Cairo to take President Nasser to Moscow, apparently to reduce to a minimum the chances of his departure being disclosed.

Determination by the Egyptian leader to recapture the island of Shadwan, it is reported, was the primary purpose of his secret journey. The support of the Soviet Union would have been needed for an Egyptian eounter-attack on the island, according to foreign diplomats in Cairo. But the Israelis themselves removed the need for such a counter-blow by evacuating the island on Friday afternoon, when President Nasser was already in Moscow.

Besides the Israeli seizure of Shadwan, there were presumably other urgent topics for discussion between the Egyptian and Russian leaders —principally, the mounting pressure of Israeli air attacks on targets in the neighbourhood of Cairo. According to Israeli figures, the Egyptians have already lost 64 aircraft to Israeli ground-fire and interceptor planes since the end of the 1967 war.

Part of the Egyptian Air Force’s problem, experts say, is that its newly-trained pilots lack experience in combat flying against the highlyskilled Israelis; and Israel’s modern French-made Mirages and American-made Skyhawks and Phantoms are superior to Egypt’s Russianmade, but older, MiGs and Sukhois, which lack the electronic equipment vital to success in air combat Informed sources in Cairo say that the Egyptian leader-

ship has been pressing the Kremlin for some time for more modern aircraft or, at least, more electronic equipment But the Russians are believed to be reluctant to have any of their later equip-

ment fall into the hands of the Israelis.

Diplomats in Cairo say they are watching closely for any evidence of the outcome of President Nasser’s flight to Moscow. They have noted

that “Pravda,” the Russian Communist Party’s official newspaper, emphasised after President Nasser’s departure for home that a political solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict had become imperative.

According to reliable sources in Cairo, the Egyptians would like the Russians to show more vigour in the talks by the four Great Powers on achieving a settlement Some say that there is vexation over a lack of coordination between Moscow and Cairo; that the Russians still have not given the Egyptian leadership the text of Moscow’s recent reply to Washington, rejecting America’s proposals for a settlement.