Bush: Mideast Peace Accord Would Give U.S. New Image in North Africa

United States Ambassador George Bush, back from a tour of 10 African states, told a press conference today that American image in some African lands would “increase drastically” in the event of a Middle East peace agreement. Bush would not elaborate during the press conference held at the US Mission.

He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent afterward that he was referring primarily to the countries of northern Africa, including, “of course, the Sudan, with which we have no relations.” Bush’s meeting with the Sudan’s military leader, Maj. Gen. Yakubu Gowon, lasted two and a half hours. The other countries Bush visited included Nigeria, Zaire, Somalia and Ethiopia, and he met with seven heads of state altogether.

“The further north you were there seemed to be more concern about the Middle East,” Bush told newsmen in an apparent allusion to the dominance of the Egyptian-Libyan-Sudanese bloc in the northeast sector of Africa. And throughout his tour, he said, there was overriding “concern that there not be war.” Nobody he encountered, he noted, was “really throwing up his hands that there would be war,” but all expressed “keen awareness” of the danger. The US, the envoy emphasized, is “certainly not interested in a war in the Middle East.”

Bush said he did not cross paths in Africa with Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring, the United Nations’ Mideast representative, who was also there recently. He added that he “couldn’t infer” from his African talks if Dr. Jarring’s African tour will lead to “some catalystic movement” in the Jarring peace mission. Asked if he favored new initiatives, Bush replied: “I think it’s always time for a peace initiative in the Middle East, on whatever track. That’s our policy.”