Gadaffi thinks he was tricked

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33386, 19 November 1973, Page 15

Gadaffi thinks he was tricked

(.V.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright; PARIS, November 18. The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, said in an interview that he would not attend the Arab summit meeting in Algiers later this month.

He said that Egypt and Syria wanted to obtain the consent of the other Arab leaders ‘‘to their project of surrender” to Israel. He predicted that other Arab leaders would also boycott the summit meeting. Colonel Gadaffi told the Middle East expert of *‘Le Monde,” Eric Rouleau, that he had been tricked. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, he said, had agreed beforehand to hold the Arab summit meeting in Cairo “discreetly” on November 10. “We even set the hour,” Colonel Gadaffi added. But then “I suddenly learned that the summit would be held at Algiers on November 26.” He said that he was not boycotting the Algiers summit meeting for reasons of “personal susceptibility", but

because the role of the Arab heads of State at Algiers would be reduced to that of “a walk-on part.” According to “Le Monde,” Colonel Gadaffl said that the Arab heads of State at Algiers would be called on only to approve what would have been decided beforehand “in Cairo” when the Arab foreign ministers met. Tire Cairo meeting, he said, was being held to “patch tip tile cracks which have appeared in the facade of Arab unity before consolidating the diplomatic strategy of Egypt and Syria.” “In other words,” he added, “we are being asked to give our approval to the recognition of the State of Israel with which Egypt and Syria are about to make peace.” (The foreign ministers were to have met in Cairo just before the Algiers summit meeting, but it was decided two days ago to hold this meeting, too, in the Algerian capital.) Colonel Gadaffl, who has previously criticised President Sadat for not continuing to fight Israel, said that he was particularly bitter about the cease-fire because he had sent large quantities of Soviet war material to Egypt and Syria. But the two countries accepted the cease-fire “even before using the arms we sent them,” he added. The Libyan leader said that he had bought, for cash, “dozens of war planes, hundreds of tanks, many pieces of artillery, air defence installations, and various other types of military material, all of Soviet make.” He did not say whether he bought the materia] direct from the Soviet Union or through a third party. Asked whether he also delivered to Egypt French-made Mirage jets, as Israel claimed during the fighting, he said no. Reminded that in a previous interview with “Le Monde” newspaper he had threatened France with reprisals if it did not lift its embargo on Arab “battlefield” countries of the 1967 six-day war. Colonel Gadaffl replied that he had already taken official steps in this connection. and added: “We have had an encouraging first result.” Asked what it was, he replied: “You will know one day.”