A statement attributed to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt that Jordan was receiving large quantities of American weapons including heavy tanks was dismissed today by a State Department spokesman as having “no significance.” Responding to questions by reporters. Department spokesman Robert J. McCloskey recalled that the United States agreed last autumn to supply equipment to Jordan to make up for losses it incurred during its battle with the Palestinian terrorists last September. “We have an ongoing military relationship with Jordan,” McCloskey said. The semi official Cairo newspaper A1 Ahram reported that Sadat told yesterday the central committee of the Arab Socialist Union, Egypt’s only political party, that the weapons Jordan was getting from the U.S. were to be used in connection with a Jordanian attack on Syria. Sadat was quoted as saying that the weapons were large than the kind necessary to deal with the terrorists and that American terms made it impossible for Jordan to use them against Israel. The State Department earlier this month ridiculed reports that the U.S. was supplying Jordan with war planes, but it did not deny that radar equipment was being supplied to Jordan for use on its northeast frontier with Syria and Iraq.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
