Envoy hopes for mission visit despite rebuff

Press, 7 January 1983, Page 6

Envoy hopes for mission visit despite rebuff

NZPA-Reuter London

The British Foreign Secretary. Mr Francis Pym. who was forced to call off a Middle East tour after being rebuffed by three Arab States, says that he still wants to receive an Arab League peace mission in London.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar had told Mr Pym he was not welcome, forcing him to postpone his tour just a week before he was due to leave for the Middle East.

Mr Pym said yesterday that he hoped the Arab League visit to London to explain the league’s Middle East peace plans would go ahead in the not too distant future.

But he gave no indication that Britain. would lift its

refusal to welcome a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as a member of the delegation, which had angered the Arabs.

Mr Pym had planned to visit Saudi Arabia, the

U.A.E.. Qatar and Oman next week in a bid to patch up differences. Informed sources said that three countries had told him he was not welcome and only Oman would still receive him. The whole trip was postponed indefinitely. The original plan for the Arab League mission was that it would visit London in November as part of a tourof main world capitals canvassing support for its peace plans. It was to be led by King Hassan of Morocco and would include several Foreign Ministers and the P.L.O. foreign affairs spokesman, Farouk Kaddoumi.

But, although Britain's Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Douglas Hurd, has met Mr Kaddoumi in the past, Britain told the league that no Cabinet Minister would

receive him unless the delegation issued a statement condemning terrorism.

The visit was deferred while a compromise was sought. Yesterday Mr Pym said that Britain was still in touch with King Hassan about the mission.

He emphasised that his own trip to the Middle East had been postponed and not cancelled and said that the decision was made after friendly and close consultation with the Arab countries.

But the opposition Labour Party's foreign affairs spokesman, Denis Healey, said that the snub had left Mr Pym a pathetic, humiliated figure. The incident had damaged British interests and could cost thousands of jobs and millions of sterling worth of trade with the Arab world. ''