Syria boosts force on Jordan border

Press, 28 November 1980, Page 7

Syria boosts force on Jordan border

NZPA-Reuter Amman, Jordan The three-day Arab League summit meeting in Amman was due to end today failing to heal a serious rift in the Arab world and amid reports of increasing tension along the Syrian-Jordanian border. Syria led a boycott of the conference by four other States and the Palestine Liberation Organisation after Arab League Foreign Ministers had rejected its call for the meeting to be postponed because of serious interArab conflicts. The main issue has been Iraq’s war with Iran. Iraq has received political support from Jordan and conservative countries but condemnation from Syria and its radical allies. The Jordanian Information Minister (Mr Adnan Abu Odeh) told reporters after the summit- meeting’s final working session that no specific decisions had been taken on moves to form a committee to work for reconciliation with the hardline dissenters. As the Heads of State prepared for the formal closing session, United States officials in Washington reported a military build-up on both

sides of the Syrian-Jordanian border, some 90km north of Amman.

The officials said that the Syrians began deploying more than 10,000 men and’ 250 tanks in the area last week-end, and that the Jordanians had responded by moving up troop reinforcements.

Jordanian officials were not immediately available for comment on the reports’ but reliable eye-witnesses said Jordanian soldiers were digging trenches and earth ramparts to screen tanks near the border. Relations between the two countries have deteriorated with repeated Syrian accusations of Jordanian support to the Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist group held responsible for a series of assassination and bomb attacks in Syria aimed against the regime of President Hafez Assad. Jordan has denied the charges.

Damascus has also said that Jordanian officials were maltreating Syrian citizens at the border, and the Syrian Foreign Minister (Mr Abdel-Halim Khaddam) told reporters last week that closing of the border was a possibility. The last working session

[of the summit meeting; 'erded with officials emphasising its economic rather; I than political achievements. | i The Heads of State agreed Ito set up a $5OOO million fund paid by wealthy oil exporters to finance an “Arab developments decade” proposed by Iraq. They also approved a new political strategy against Israel despite the absence of Syria, Lebanon, and the P.L.O. — the main forces directly confronting the Jewish State. But conference sources said it was essentially the same as a draft plan approved by the preparatory session of Arab League Foreign Ministers attended by the three dissenters.

The Syrian newspaper, "AI-Thawra,” condemned the summit meeting as a conspiracy against the P.L.O.

It said Jordan’s insistence on holding the conference on schedule was aimed at giving Jordan “a legal right to liquidate the P.L.O. and speak in its name in Europe and in the imperialist United States.” Conference sources said the last session was discussing King Hussein’s right to speak for the Palestinians in talks with President Reagan.