In a major concession, Syria agreed Wednesday to let other Arab states send peacekeeping troops to Lebanon to balance out the all-Syrian force that has been engaged in five years of on-and-off warfare with Christian militiamen aided by Israel.
The decision was disclosed by Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam at the end of a two-day meeting of an Arab League committee charged with drafting a peace settlement for Lebanon.
The committee also backed Syria’s demand that the Lebanon’s Christian Phalangist militia sever its ties with Israel, an association Khaddam called ‘treason.’
Beirut Radio said Khaddam told reporters Syria welcomed the participation of contingents from other nations in the 30,000-man Arab Deterrent Force, currently an all-Syrian force with an Arab League mandate to keep the peace in Lebanon. Its clashes with the Phalangists have led to charges that the force has become another party to the civil war it was sent to Lebanon to stop in 1976.
Khaddam was also quoted as saying the committee agreed the Phalangists must sever their ties to Israel, which intervened in the fighting last April and shot down two Syrian helicopters over central Lebanon.
However, it was by no means certain the committee’s recommendation would be well received by the Phalangists, who have demanded a set of security guarantees from Syria in return for giving up their Israeli aid.
Syria in turn rejected the conditions. Going into Wednesday’s meeting, Khaddam told reporters: ‘We refuse any conditions for ending the link with Israel. Treason is not dependent on conditions.’
After the meeting Lebanese Foreign Minister Fuad Butros said the committee drafted a set of recommendations to be considered at its next round of talks in Lebanon on July 4. That meeting was expected to discuss the mechanics of broadening the peace-keeping force in Lebanon.
In Beirut, U.S. envoy Philip Habib was waiting to confer with Butros before flying back to Washington at the end of seven weeks of inconclusive negotiations to avert a Syrian-Israeli confrontation over Lebanon.
While the Arab League committee has been wrestling with the broader question of an overall peace settlement for Lebanon, Habib has been concentrating on the crisis that erupted April 28, when Israel shot down the two Syrian helicopters.
The next day, Syria began installing anti-aircraft missiles in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. Israeli Prime MInister Menachem Begin then threatened to destroy the missiles if Syria did not remove them — prompting the Reagan Administration to dispatch Habib to the region on the first of two so far inconclusive rounds of shuttle diplomacy.
