President Francois Mitterrand will raise the issue of Syria’s Jews with President Hafez Assad when he goes to Damascus for a three-day official visit beginning next Monday. He also intends to press Assad for a firm commitment to respect the status quo in Lebanon once Israeli troops are withdrawn from that country, sources here said.
Mitterrand has asked Theo Klein, president of the Representative Council of Major French Jewish Organizations (CRIF), for a full briefing on the situation of Syria’s 5,000 Jews before his departure for Damascus.
CRIF, along with the World Jewish Congress and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith was an organizer of the international conference on Syrian Jewry held here last week. The conference urge Mitterrand to ask Assad to allow Syrian Jews to emigrate to Israel.
JEWISH OFFICIAL WILL NOT ACCOMPANY MITTERRAND
It was learned, meanwhile, that Jacques Attali, a senior advisor to the French President, will not accompany Mitterrand to Syria. This is apparently Mitterrand’s decision to avoid provoking the Syrians with whom delicate issues will be raised. Attali is a Jew with close ties to Israel and the French Jewish community.
An Elysee Palace spokesman and the Syrian Embassy here said today that Damascus had made no request, formally or indirect, for the exclusion of Attali. The Syrian Ambassador, Yussef Chakkour, told the French news agency, Agence France Presse, “We had no prior contacts with the Elysee on this subject. The Presidential Office forwarded us the list of the President’s party and we automatically approved it.”
Attali has accompanied Mitterrand on all of his past official visits abroad, including last summer’s trip to Moscow. Klein was also a member of the Presidential party in the Soviet capital, at Mitterrand’s invitation. On that trip, Mitterrand raised the issue of equal rights for Soviet Jews with the Kremlin leaders.
His trip to Damascus will be the first by an incumbent French President since Syria, a French mandate between the two world wars, was granted independence 40 years ago. Sources here said Mitterrand wants a binding promise from Assad not to alter the present deployment of Syrian troops in Lebanon or to try to occupy positions evacuated by Israeli troops when they withdraw.
The matter of Syrian Jewry is in fact a sensitive one. Last week’s international conference, at which speakers accused Syria of holding its Jewish community “hostage,” drew an angry denunciation from Assad. In a Damascus radio in terview last Sunday, he denied there was anti-Semitism in Syria and accused the conference of meddling in Syria’s internal affairs.
TWO FORMER FRENCH PMS TO VISIT ISRAEL
It was announced, meanwhile, that two former French Prime Ministers, Jacques Chirac and Jacques Chaban Delmas, will visit Israel early next month, shortly after Mitterrand returns from Syria. They are scheduled to leave on December 9 and will meet in Jerusalem with Premier Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Two other ranking French leaders visited Israel only recently — former President Valery Giscard D’Estaing and former Prime Minister Raymond Barre. They, along with Chirac and Delmas are seeking nomination to head the opposition to Mitterrand’s Socialist Party in France’s next general elections.
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