Arab Leaders Seeking Ways to Stabilize Regimes, Obtain Military Aid

A number of heads of Arab states are desperately trying to find ways of stabilizing their regimes and getting aid to resolve their internal differences. The mediation team trying to resolve the dispute between the Jordanian government and the Palestinian terrorists left today for Amman, Jordan, according to Cairo Radio. Dr. Hassan Sabri Al Khouli, Egyptian President Sadat’s personal representative, and Omar Sakkaf, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, are said to be carrying a “working paper” setting forth details for relations between the Jordanian authorities and the terrorists. Sakkaf was in Amman, Damascus, and Beirut last week, but he apparently failed to achieve any progress because of the terrorists objections to bowing to the Jordanian government’s insistence on full authority over them.

Meanwhile, Syrian Vice-President Mohamoud Ayoubi and Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam unexpectedly left for Moscow, according to a report in the London Financial Times. They are supposed to be on a mediation mission between the Soviet Union and the Sudan. But there are also reports that the two went to reassure Moscow in the wake of rumors that the Communist Party will be banned in Syria. Also, some details have been learned about a British military mission in Beirut which discussed an arms deal as part of a $64 million project to re-equip the Lebanese army. Officially, neither the British Foreign Office nor the Defense Ministry discusses arms deals or even admit that negotiations are in progress. But it has been learned unofficially that the Lebanese want to buy six second-hand Hunter jet fighters currently being used by the British Royal Air Force. The planes will be on sale after they are overhauled. In addition, the Lebanese want to buy light Scorpion tanks made of aluminum. These tanks have not yet been delivered to the British army.