Arab world splits into two angrily opposed factions

Press, 27 November 1980, Page 9

Arab world splits into two angrily opposed factions

NZPA-Reuter Amman, Jordan! Arab leaders will discuss : joint action against Israel today despite the fact that the main forces confronting: the Jewish State, including' the Palestine Liberation Organisation, have boycotted the meeting. , The boycott has split the 1 Arab world into two oppos-' ing camps in the worst rift for a decade, with Syrian-led hard-liners staying awav.i The Amman meeting is being attended by a majority of Arab States led by conservatives. A new strategy against j Israel should have been top* of the agenda when the’ truncated summit held its! first working ‘session in Amman yesterday. Six ofj the 21 full members of the! Arab League stayed away. I But the leaders decided to postpone political talks until they had dealt with the other main topic, plans for joint economic action. They

!then agreed to delay the; political talks until today to j allow a day for private con-j . suitations. ; ; Diplomatic sources said: ; the delay would enable the leaders to discuss problems caused by the boycott. i A hard-line alliance of Syria, the P.L.0., Libya, Algeria, and South Yemen, together with the Syrian-domi : I nated Lebanon, has boy-' icotted the summit because it said bitter inter-Arab conflicts made the meeting ■futile. The main cause of these 'conflicts at present is Iraq’s! I two-month-old war with! 'tnon-Arab Iran, in which con■servatives have backed Iraq ilbut hard-liners favour Iran. I The seriousness of the rift II was obvious yesterday when • King Hussein opened the i summit meeting with an impassioned appeal for Palestinian rights that failed to 1 make one reference to the! P.L.0., regarded by the 1

Arabs as the sole legitimate j representative of the Palestinians. Differences of opinion on! | the Iraq-Iran war surfaced ini : the first session, according; to an official statement,; when Morocco declared that* Iraq had been forced to fight; Tor its rights, but Sudani called on both countries to* ston fighting. The two countries spoke; : before the summit meeting; discussed a four-part joint’ economic strategy for the* Arab States, which include : some of the world** poriest i nations as well as its richest ioil exporters. The leaders approved three Darts of the strategy, one of them a plan to en- : courage more oil money to stay in the Arab world instead of being invested in the United States, Europe, o r Japan. Finance Ministers 1 are still hammering out a • fourth section dealing with 'development issues.