Observers here believe that President Anwar Sadat of Egypt will turn to Washington for help to preserve his regime in the wake of last week’s bloody riots. They expect Sadat to ask for additional financial assistance from the U.S. and political advancement toward a peace settlement in the area which he can hold up to the Egyptian people as achievements.
According to sources here. Sadat will make his pitch when U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance visits Cairo on his Middle East trip next month, and the U.S. is likely to respond because Washington regards Sadat as a moderate Arab leader who sincerely desires to reach a political settlement with Israel, the sources said. Therefore, it is in the interests of American policy that the Sadat Presidency continue.
It was badly shaken during the riots in which more than 65 people were reported killed and 800 injured. The immediate cause was a government decree raising food prices but sporadic violence continued in Egypt even after Sadat rescinded the order. Defense Minister Shimon Peres reported over the weekend that Egyptian troops were withdrawn from the Sinai front where they faced Israeli lines to help curb the rioting. He said the forces included armored battalions and assault troops.
Former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told reporters at Ben Gurion Airport Friday that the rioting in Egypt would force Sadat to divert funds from the military to the domestic economic sector and as a result he would press harder for a Middle East peace settlement. Dayan, who left on a fund-raising mission in Britain and the U.S., said “The Egyptian government will now want to end the state of belligerency with Israel to enable itself to funnel greater economic resources into development projects and attract investment capital from Europe and the U.S.”
He observed that Western investors were not likely to risk their capital in Egyptian industry as long as the threat of another Middle East war continued. He predicted that Egypt would seek to have the Geneva peace conference reconvened immediately after Israel’s general elections May 17.
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