Sadat to send team on Peking mission

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34128, 14 April 1976, Page 21

Sadat to send team on Peking mission

Iti JP A -Reuter —Copyright/ CAIRO, April 13. Egyptian plans to send a high-level delegation to Peking have added insult to injury in Egypt’s relations with the Soviet Union, but diplomatic sources in Cairo seem confident that the Kremlin is unlikely to retaliate in the near future. The announcement of a forthcoming visit to China by a team led by Vice-Presi-dent Hosni Mubarak, regarded as another sign of President Sadat’s determination to “cash in” on the ideological rivalry between the two Communist giants, is, however, certain to infuriate i he Russians. Moscow has already been deprived of navai facilities in Egypt by the canceiiation bv Cairo last month of the

1971 Egyptian - Russian 'treaty of friendship and co--operation. i A few days after the unilateral abrogation of the treaty, on the ground of Russia’s failure to supply fresh arms and spare parts, Egypt announced that China had agreed to deliver 30 jet engines for the Egyptian Air Force’s Soviet-built MiG fighters, along with other, unidentified, military equipment.. Yesterday, the Minister of Information (Mr Gamal Oteifi) disclosed that China has now also agreed to deliver spare parts for Egypt’s Soviet-built industries — a pledge greeted in Cairo as the beginning of a new era in Chinese-Egyp-tian relations. Mr Oteifi’s statement coincided with the last stage of the moderately successful tour of five European countries bv President Sadat, timed at attracting more economic and military aid.

Mr Sadat is expected to announce on his return to Cairo that his 16-day tour of West Germany, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Austria will reap worthwhile dividends, at least on the economic front.

The urgency of Egypt’s search for way to keep its large Russian-supplied arsenal in working order was emphasised by the arrival yesterday of the Minister of Wai (General Mohammed Abdel-Ghani Gamassi) in Rumania on an official visit. The question of arms supplies and spares is also thought to ha been raised in Yugoslovia in Mr Sadat's talks with President Tito. Results have not been made known.

! East European diplomats ' emphasise that the Russians ihave no intention of breaking existing agreements for i the supply of industrial ; spares for the heavy industries they have built in Egypt, including steel, aluminium. and textile plants.

An estimated 500 Soviet Union technicians are still working, under contract, in Soviet-built factories, and there has been speculation in the Egyptian press that Moscow, in the face of what it considers to be Egyptian ingratitude, will withdraw these experts. In Moscow today, Yuri Trushin, the former head of the Cairo office of the official Soviet Union news agency, Tass, said in a commentary that the Soviet Union had fulfilled all its aid obligations to Egypt.