President Carter is due to meet here tomorrow afternoon with Syrian President Hafez Assad as part of America’s current round of talks with Middle Eastern leaders. Assad arrived here this afternoon from Damascus. Carter, who is attending the economic summit conference in London, is due in Geneva tomorrow afternoon. He will confer with Assad for about four hours and return to London in the evening.
The Syrian President said on his arrival here that “Peace is a pressing need for humanity as a whole. It is even more pressing for the Middle East. He refused to say, however, whether Syria believes that the Arab-Israeli negotiations should take place at the Geneva conference or that they should be thoroughly prepared beforehand.
Syrian sources here said Assad is “optimistic” about the outcome of his talks with Carter. According to these sources, the Syrian leader discerns a change in U.S. policy which could be more favorable to the Arab cause.
FEELS TACTICAL VICTORY WAS SCORED
The sources also said that Assad feels he has scored a tactical victory in having the meeting take place in Geneva. All other Middle East leaders, from Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin, to Jordan’s King Hussein and Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat, went to Washington for their meetings with Carter. Assad held out for a meeting on “neutral ground.” He turned down London and chose Geneva in order to stress the continuation of the “Geneva process” started with the peace conference which convened briefly in December, 1973.
The Syrians point to three factors which, they say, have strengthened their hand: Carter’s energy preservation campaign which the Syrians interpret as an open admission of America’s need for oil if it wants to preserve its industrial status; Carter’s decision to seek a global solution to the Middle East conflict; and his recent mention of the need for a Palestinian “homeland.”
Carter will meet later this month with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Fahd and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance will meet Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on May 18 in Geneva. Vance is scheduled to revisit the Middle East in June. It is believed that only after this tour will Carter decide which way a Middle East solution should be approached.
MEETING VIEWED AS HIGHLY IMPORTANT
Tomorrow’s meeting with Assad is described as of “the highest importance” by American diplomatic sources. Assad will be accompanied by his Deputy Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam. Vance and Zbigniew Brzezinski, chairman of the National Security Council, will accompany Carter. Assad, according to these sources, intends to ask Carter to reconvene the Geneva conference “at the earliest” and certainly not later than next autumn. As for the rest, the Syrians said Assad is mainly interested to hear from Carter what America’s plans and intentions are.
An interesting development is that the Syrian spokesmen in Geneva openly spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent, fully aware of identity. The JTA correspondent had participated on Swiss television panel dealing with the Middle East and the Syrian officials were able to identify him.
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