King Fahd of Saudi Arabia held talks in Jidda today with two high-ranking Syrian officials in an effort to find ways to keep the war between Iran and Iraq from spreading to other countries in the gulf.
The official Saudi Press Agency provided no details about the talks between the Saudi King and Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam and Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa. But the official Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, reported that Mr. Khaddam and Mr. Sharaa gave King Fahd a message from President Hafez al-Assad of Syria about ”Syria’s efforts to de-escalate tension in the gulf and prevent an expansion of the gulf war.” It did not elaborate.
But Arab officials in this region said the Syrian emissaries had briefed the Saudi King on their meetings earlier this week with Iranian leaders in Teheran.
Late Tuesday Saudi Arabia sent an envoy to Damascus to enlist Syrian help in dissuading Iran from attacking Saudi oil tankers in international gulf waters or from taking other actions that would inflame the Iran-Iraq conflict, now in its 44th month. At the United Nations Friday, Iran pledged that it would not attack commercial ships in the gulf if Iraq did not.
Syria is one of the few Arab countries that supports non-Arab Iran in its war with Arab Iraq. Saudi Arabia supports Iraq, but it also provides considerable economic aid to Syria.
Meanwhile, Syria accused Iraq today of stepping up the tanker war in the gulf in an attempt to involve oil rich Arab nations in the conflict and of ”sabotaging Syrian efforts to insure free navigation or all countries in the gulf,” according to a statement distributed by SANA.
Since last March, when Iraq began attacking commercial shipping near Iran’s Kharg island export terminal with French-built Super Etendard jets armed with Exocet missiles, shipping in the gulf has dropped dramatically. London and Arab shipping sources said that tanker traffic in the gulf was now reduced to one-eight of its usual volume and that Iranian oil exports had dropped from 1.8 million barrels per day to fewer than one million barrels per day.
Western and Arab diplomats in the region argued that the real threat posed by the attacks was not a shortage of oil, but an international political crisis that could trigger international military involvement here.
