Six African Chiefs of State Examining Mideast Situation

Six African chiefs of state opened yesterday a “thorough examination” of the Middle East situation to try and elaborate a common African policy for the forthcoming United Nations General Assembly, which gets under way Sept. 21. The six leaders, who are meeting at the Conference of the Organization for African Unity being held in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Presidents of Mauritania, Senegal, Nigeria. Cameroon and Congo (Kinshasa). They have been joined by special representatives from Liberia, Kenya and Tanzania. Both Israel and Egypt have sent special messages to the participants, explaining their respective positions. The Israeli message, signed by Premier Golda Meir, was sent to only five of the six African leaders–those of Ethiopia, Senegal, Nigeria, Cameroon and Congo (Kinshasa)–as Israel has no diplomatic relations with Mauritania, the Islamic republic whose President Moktar Ould Daddah, is chairman of the Conference. Mrs. Meir urged the conferees to reconsider the stand taken by the OAU plenary in June, which stressed Israeli pullbacks. President Daddah told French correspondents that the Organization would not announce its position until the General Assembly opened. The African countries claimed at their June meeting that the closure of the Suez Canal has seriously hurt their economies.