Halt to ‘camps war’ sought

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 6

Halt to ‘camps war’ sought

NZPA-Reuter Tunis The Arab League has formed a committee of Foreign Ministers to arrange a ceasefire in the Lebanon “camps war,” but both Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organisation indicated that problems remained. An emergency meeting yesterday of the 21-mem-ber Arab League created the committee to try to stop nearly three months of bitter fighting around Palestinian refugee camps jn Lebanon.

A final communique on the one-day session said the committee, composed of seven foreign ministers and Arab League Secre-tary-General, Chedli Klibi, should start work at once. Both the P.L.0., which accuses Damascus of direct involvement in the fighting on the side of Shi’ite Amal militia, and Syria said they wanted a truce.

Asked whether there would now be an immediate ceasefire on the Palestinian side, the P.L.O. “Foreign Minister,” Farouk Kaddoumi, the head of the Political Department, told reporters: "I hope so. It depends on the action to be taken by

the Syrians to make pressure over all concerned on their side.” He said the committee, which also includes the present council president, Algeria, and Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Tunisia, Kuwait, Mauritania and North Yemen, would see the P.L.O. first and go on to Lebanon and Syria. Syria’s chief delegate, a Foreign Ministry official, Hatem Hunein, denounced the creation of the committee as a propaganda exercise and indicated that his country would not receive it.

Both Lebanon and Syria expressed formal reservations about the final communique of the meeting, which called on “all parties concerned,” without naming any of them, to observe a ceasefire, and appealed for a lifting of the siege of the camps to enable the wounded to be evacuated and food and medical supplies to be delivered.

The committee was to try to implement these resolutions and the Arab League would meet again on January 14 to review the results of its mission, the communique said.