U.S., Syrian leaders exchange letters

Press, 29 June 1987, Page 10

U.S., Syrian leaders exchange letters

NZPA Damascus Syria yesterday confirmed that President Hafez Assad received and replied to a letter from President Ronald Reagan asking that he receive a special United States emissary. The move by Mr Reagan was an apparant attempt to improve relations between Syria and the United States.

It was the first Syrian confirmation of Mr Reagan’s letter and came from a Presidential spokesman, Jibran Kourieh, who declined to give details of Mr Assad’s reply.

The White House said the letter asked Mr Assad to receive a special envoy to discuss Middle-East

peace efforts, terrorism and foreign hostages abducted in Lebanon, including nine Americans. Syria’s State-controlled news media made no mention of the United States announcement that Washington would send an unidentified emissary, to travel to Syria to meet Mr Assad.

An American journalist, Charles Glass, a former A.B.C. news correspondent seized June 17, was the first foreigner kidnapped since Syrian troops entered Muslim West Beirut on February 22 to end fighting between rival militias. .

Syria, the chief powerbroker in strife-torn Lebanon, had sought to pressure the captors of

Mr Glass into releasing him.

The United States withdrew its Ambassador in Damascus, William Eagleton, in October after Britain broke relations with Syria. Britain alleged that Syria was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to put a bomb aboard an Israeli airliner at a London airport.

A United States State department report in December said attacks by Syrian-supported terrorist groups had killed or wounded nearly 500 people since 1983. Syria remains on the United States State Department’s list of countries that support terrorism.