U.S. Confirms Soviet Aircraft Fly Regularly over Saudi Arabia with Saudi Permission

Soviet aircraft regularly fly over Saudi Arabia with Saudi permission between the Soviet Union and Soviet basses in Ethopia and Aden, both within striking distance of the Middle East oil fields and the Suez Canal.

The State Department confirmed this development as Secretary of State Alexander Haig was prepared to visit Saudi Arabia on his four-country Middle East trip beginning April 3 to assess means to defend the oil fields, including Saudi Arabia’s against Soviet penetration and possible takeover.

“There are regularly scheduled commercial passenger and freight flights by Aeroflot between the Soviet Union and those countries (Ethiopia and Aden),” the State Department told this reporter. “These flights over-fly Saudi Arabia,” the department said. Soviet aircraft can easily carry munitions and troops as well as civilians and ordinary freight.

The question was raised at the State Department after National Review, the conservative weekly edited by William Buckley, reported in its current edition that Saudi Arabia is allowing the overflights and, in addition, trans-shipment of Soviet-built tanks to Iraq. The Department had no comment on the report regarding tanks.

“The Saudis are the major obstacle to an American presence in the Gulf, “which the Reagan Administration is trying to establish, National Review’s article said.

“By hiring Pakistani mercenaries, by buying German tanks and French planes, they hope to build an armory that will make them independent and able to keep the Americans from establishing a presence nearby. They do not seem nearly as concerned about the Soviet over-flights they permit to Aden and Ethiopia, and they have allowed Soviet-built tanks to be unloaded at Saudi ports for trans-shipment to Iraq,” the National Review said.