U.S. Stresses That Diplomatic Efforts Are Continuing to Achieve a Cease-fire in Lebanon

The Reagan Administration stressed today that the diplomatic efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Lebanon are “continuing very actively.” U.S. special envoy Robert McFarlane was in Damascus today where he reportedly met with the Syrian Foreign Minister, Abdel Halim Khaddam, and with Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Lebanese Druze who are fighting the Lebanese army from the Shouf mountains.

The Administration is pressing the diplomatic effort not only because it wants Congress to adopt the compromise agreement allowing the U.S. marines to stay an additional 18 months in Lebanon, but because, as President Reagan made clear yesterday, the Administration believes that if the effort in Lebanon fails, it will take down with it any remaining hope for the Reagan Middle East peace initiative.

Answering questions from regional editors and broadcasters at the White House yesterday, Reagan said if the cease-fire effort fails, “the peace plan for the whole Middle East that we had proposed and offered our help in bringing about, based on Camp David and the UN resolutions … I think also goes.”

REAGAN ASSAILS SYRIA

Reagan, in his talks with the visiting journalists, stressed, as did Secretary of State George Shultz in testifying before Senate and House committees yesterday, that Syria is to blame for the lack of progress in Lebanon. “They’ve made it pretty apparent that they have a proprietorship over much of Lebanon,” the President said of Syria.

“They, and I think under the influence of the Soviet forces that are there in their own country, are behind much of what is presently going on, ” he added.

Shultz said yesterday that there are about 7,000 Soviet advisors in Syria, but at the same time, he asserted that Syrian President Hafez Assad still is capable of making his own decisions.

Shultz also expressed concern yesterday that the Syrians have allowed the Palestinians to infiltrate back into Lebanon in violation of the agreement by which the Palestine Liberation Organization was evacuated from Beirut last year. But he was not clear whether the Palestinians he was talking about were members of the PLO.

‘VARIETY OF PALESTINIANS’ ARE BACK IN LEBANON

State Department spokesman John Hughes said today that there are “a variety of Palestinians” who have infiltrated back into Lebanon, some of whom are “loyal” to PLO chief Yasir Arafat and some “not so loyal” to Arafat. He said some of them are members of the PLO while others are part of the Syrian-sponsored Palestine Liberation Army.

Reagan, however, said that it was the PLO which has reinfiltrated and “have moved into the fighting.” Hughes indicated that the Palestinians seem to be taking turns with the Druze in doing the fighting. He explained that probably, as one group comes under shellfire and withdraws to re-group, the other takes over the fighting.