Gemayel to see Assad

Press, 1 March 1984, Page 10

Gemayel to see Assad

NZPA-Reuter Beirut

Lebanese President, Mr Amin Gemayel, is reportedly heading for Damascus for a summit meeting with the Syrian leader, Hafez Assad, after finally agreeing to Syrian and Muslim demands to scrap last May’s treaty with Israel. In Damascus, the official Syrian news agency, Sana, said it had learned that Mr Gemayel would arrive in 48 hours. Official sources in Beirut said that a summit conference with Mr Assad was planned, perhaps on Saturday, but the exact date had not been set. Reports of a summit meeting surfaced after official sources said that Mr Gemayel was ready to cancel a troop withdrawal treaty Lebanon signed with Israel in May last year. That would mean abandoning reliance on the United States, which negotiated the accord, in favour of close links with Syria — a course vehemently opposed by militant Christians who are Mr Gemayel’s natural supporters. Blows to Mr Gemayel’s Ejwer last month left him ttle choice but to make the concession which Syria and its Lebanese Muslim allies have been demanding for months.

Mr Gemayel’s opponents

want the treaty scrapped because, although it commits Israeli troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon, it gives Israel a role in policing the area. They also want Lebanon to be a distinctly Arab country shunning relations with the Jewish state. Diplomatic sources said that abrogation of the treaty could be announced by all the warring Lebanese groups at new reconciliation talks in Geneva. The French External Relations Minister, Mr Claude Cheysson, said in Paris yesterday that French troops would not stay in Beirut if the warring Lebanese factions were not reconciled. The French contingent of 1500 men is the last of the four-nation multinational groups left in the Lebanese capital. Mr Cheysson said, “Our role is to re-establish order, and to facilitate that the Lebanese must be fully reconciled. If they cannot be reconciled, then the French could not stay there, they could not.” France, which-joined the United States, Britain, and Italy in sending forces to Beirut, wants a United Nations force to be dispatched to the battered city. The United States Marines, Italian troops, and British soldiers have already left. • King Fahd of Saudi

Arabia has urged President Ronald Reagan to stay actively involved in Lebanon, and the United States has rejected Mr Gemayel’s request for an extended military commitment, “The Washington Post” newspaper reports. Quoting unnamed diplomatic sources, it said that the Reagan Administration had denied Mr Gemayel’s request for United States naval firepower to maintain the military status quo in Lebanon. The “Post” said that a letter from King Fahd had been delivered to Mr Reagan late yesterday by the Saudi ambassador shortly after his return to Washington from the Middle East.

The King sounded a warning that disengaging from Lebanon could cause irreparable damage to American influence in the region, the “Post” reported, quoting sources that it said were familiar with the letter.

Administration officials have signalled that the United States now intends to play a passive role in Lebanon. Mr Reagan’s Middle East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, would withdraw from diplomatic efforts to resolve the problems, they said on Tuesday.

Mr Rumsfeld was not expected to return to Lebanon and he would concentrate

on Mr Reagan’s plan for an over-all Middle East peace settlement. The decision was taken because of the withdrawal of United States Marines from Beirut to ships offshore and the absence now of any meaningful role in trying to stem the violence and encourage reconciliation between warring Christian and Muslim factions, the officials said.

“The Washington Post” said that a special envoy from Mr Gemayel sent to Washington last week had been told the United States would not extend its military commitments in Lebanon. “The Post” did not name the envoy, but the Lebanese embassy said that Mr Gemayel’s National Security Adviser, Wadi Haddad, had been in Washington recently. “The Post” said that King Fahd had suggested that Mr Reagan could salvage United States standing in the region by supporting a Saudi plan for a political settlement in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, 21 people were wounded when two grenades exploded at the entrance to a clothing store in the main street of the predominantly Jewish western quarter of the city. The police said that it was not known who was responsible for the attack.