President Reagan has asked his special envoy, Philip Habib, to return to the Middle East sometime after Thanksgiving, the State Department announced Friday. Department spokesman Dean Fischer said that while no date has been set, he expects the 61-year-old former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs to leave for the region before Dec. 1.
While noting that the situation in Lebanon “has been relatively quiet,” since the ceasefire across the Lebanese-Israeli border, which Habib helped achieve last July, Fischer said Habib was returning because the “tension in the area has been rising lately.”
Fischer would not be specific about the causes of rising tension, except to note the recent dispute between the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and Maj. Saad Haddad, commander of the Christian militia in south Lebanon.
Fischer said Habib’s mission would be to “determine how the United States can be helpful in reducing the tensions further and in improving the basic conditions in Lebanon.”
NO COMMENT ON MISSILE SITUATION
Fischer would not comment on whether Habib will be seeking the removal of the SAM-6 missiles placed in central Lebanon by Syria last spring, as Israel has demanded. Nor would he comment on charges that the Palestine Liberation Organization has violated the cease-fire by reinforcing and rearming its terrorist forces in south Lebanon.
The announcement Friday came as no surprise since the Administration had been saying for weeks that Habib would return to the Mideast in November. He will be accompanied, as he has on his previous trips, by Morris Draper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian affairs.
Fischer also said that no itinerary has been set for the trip, which he said was “open-ended,” but will last at least a week. However, he said he anticipated Habib would go to the same countries he visited on his three previous trips — Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, in an action related to the Mideast, the House last Thursday voted 368-13 to approve the use of American troops and civilian personnel in the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) that will patrol the Sinai after Israel’s final withdrawal next April. The Senate had earlier approved such participation. The resolution authorizes the sending of about 1,000 U.S. personnel for the 2,500-member force. It also appropriates $135 million for fiscal 1982, which covers two-thirds of the cost of starting up the MFO and operating it for the first year.
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.
