‘Syrians want to help’ but...

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 10

‘Syrians want to help’ but...

NZPA-Reuter Damascus Syria had offered to help free 12 American, French and British nationals still held hostage in Lebanon, diplomats in Damascus said yesterday. They gave a warning that limits to Syria’s influence, and the potentially damaging repercussions in Damascus of Mr Reagan’s campaign to close Beirut airport to international traffic, gave little cause for hope. One analyst, said, “I think we will see an active Syrian role on behalf of the hostages still in Lebanon, provided there are no more embarrassments. I think the Syrians really want to help as long as it doesn’t cost them too much.” The diplomats said that Mr Reagan’s bid to shut down Beirut airport might strain Syrian willingness to lend a hand to win the remaining kidnap victims’ freedom. Syria, they said, had only limited influence over the fundamentalist Shi’ite groups believed to be holding the remaining Western hostages and might not be able to repeat the success it had on Sunday when it obtained freedom for the 39 T.W.A. hostages. Despite its role as the main power broker in Lebanon, “Syria cannot simply push a button and get results,” one diplomat

said. Seven Americans, four Frenchmen and a Briton have been kidnapped over the last 18 months in Lebanon. In Paris yesterday, the French External Relations Minister, Mr Roland Dumas, and Alexandre Hay, president of the International Committee of the Red cross, discussed the hostages’ fate. One diplomat in Damascus viewed Mr Reagan’s bid to close Beirut airport as “more or less a direct challenge to Syria” that could stall Syrian efforts to work for the kidnap victims’ release. Other diplomats said that the initial collapse of a plan to gain the T.W.A. hostages’ release on Saturday — after a Syrian presidential spokesman Jubran Kurieh, had already announced that the hostages had been freed — revealed the limits of Syrian influence in Beirut. “The Syrians were clearly embarrassed when the release failed on Saturday. If they couldn’t control the situation when it really mattered, then it shows how little control they really have,” said one diplomat. Other diplomats said that Syria’s ultimate success on Sunday might have created a momentum of good will and was a sign of hope that it could put pressure on Lebanese groups to release their captives.