Jobert Asks Syrian Government to Release Israeli Pows; Saudi Expected to Buy Amx-30 Tanks with Laser

French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert has asked the Syrian government to release at the earliest the Israeli POWs it still holds. Jobert, who last night concluded a two-day official visit to Syria, told a press conference at Damascus Airport that he had asked the Syrian Minister for Foreign Affairs to reconsider his country’s stand on this issue. “It is regrettable that human beings, the prisoners, should become the stake of the game now being played,” Jobert said. The French envoy said that he drew Syria’s attention to “the humanitarian aspect” of the question “as we have done in past circumstances also in both Syria and Israel.”

Jobert reported here today to the French government on his trip to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Syria. Government spokesman Jean-Philippe Lecat later said that the Minister had “reasserted France’s known political positions” and had tried to develop its economic ties with the visited countries. Lecat confirmed that Jobert will visit more Arab states, including Iraq, next month. He said that the Minister may return to Saudi Arabia in the near future.

Observers in Paris believe that Jobert plans to finalize the Franco-Saudi economic agreement after the details will have been worked out by experts. This agreement would provide France with some 800 million tons of oil over the next 20years for which France would pay in industrial products, technical know-how and arms.

French sources say that Saudi Arabia is expected to buy in France a large quantity of AMX-30 tanks equipped with a special laser gun. This tank would probably be the world’s most sophisticated and expensive. Saudi Arabia has already bought in France 275 AMX-30 tanks equipped with conventional guns, however. France also expects to sell Saudia more Mirage planes as well as the supersonic Franco-British produced “Concorde.”