Emergency meetings in Cairo and Moscow

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32975, 22 July 1972, Page 15

Emergency meetings in Cairo and Moscow

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

CAIRO, July 21.

Egypt’s Parliamentary body will meet in emergency closed session today as the airlift of Soviet military experts ordered out by President Anwar Sadat goes into a fifth day. An authoritative source in Cairo said that six planeloads of Soviet military experts were due in Moscow within the next few hours.

Many others have already arrived i n the Soviet capital over the last few days.

President Sadat made his dramatic decision on the military advisers last Tuesday and the gravity of the situation was reflected by the meeting of the Parliamentary body of the Arab Socialist Union — Egypt’s sole political party —on a Friday. The State’s official week-end is a Friday.

The authoritative newspaper, “Al Ahram,” in a report from Moscow, said that the Soviet leaders, Messrs Leonid Brezhnev, Nikolai Podgomy, and Alexei Kosy-

gin, were holding a series of meetings with Soviet Party Central Committee experts on developments of the last few days. Quoting observers in the Soviet capital, “Al Ahram” said that efforts were now being directed for “selfrestraint and to withhold any reactions in an attempt to make a balanced reappraisal of the situation.” The Soviet leaders were studying reports from the Soviet Ambassador in Cairo, Mr Vladimir Inogradov, and General Okiniev, head of the Soviet military experts mission in Egypt. They also were scrutinising the text of President Sadat’s statement on the experts to the central committee of the A.S.U. last Tuesday, “Al Ahram” said. The name of the chief Soviet expert in Egypt has never been revealed before. The obvious Moscow line now tended to reaffirm to the Arabs that the Soviet Union continued to stand by their side and on the other hand was trying to avoid any

further complications of the situation, the newspaper said. It noted a Tass statement to this effect which said the Soviet Union was determined to continue developing and consolidating relations with Egypt on the basis of joint struggle and for the “liquidation of Israeli aggression” to achieve peace and security in the Middle East. “Al Ahram” said that it was significant that the Tass statement came out a day after President Sadat’s speech, for Soviet information media normally withheld such reaction for a longer time. “Al Ahram” said that the Palestinian guerrilla leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, at present in Moscow, was due in Cairo soon for talks with Egyptian officials on the situation. Mr Arafat would presumably convey the latest Soviet thinking to President Sadat. The guerrilla chief was also expected to visit Libya and Syria after his Cairo talks, the newspaper said. President Sadat himself plans to attend manoeuvres

of the Egyptian Armed Forces next Sunday—anniversary of the Egyptian revolution which overthrew the monarchy 20 years ago. The Peking press reported with exceptional rapidity the decision to demand the withdrawal of Soviet military advisers from Egypt. The New China News Agency gave a detailed account of what it called the “important Egyptian decisions,” but made no comment. Diplomatic sources in Peking predicted, however, that President Sadat’s move could only bring the greatest satisfaction to the Chinese Government. The decision was published under bold headlines in the Lebanese press, which speculated on Cairo’s next step. Two newspapers suggested that the surprise move left the Arabs naked in the face of their enemy. “Al Nahar” newspaper said it had come at a moment that was so critical that “we feel as if we were naked.”