Soviet President Andrei A. Gromyko met with the Syrian vice president Wednesday in what Western diplomats have speculated is a Kremlin attempt to unite its criticism of U.S. and Israeli policies with that of its Arab allies.
The visit to Moscow by the Syrian official, Abdel-Halim Khaddam, coincides with discussions between Soviet leaders and the Libyan government’s No. 2 man, Abdel-Salam Jalloud.
Jalloud was reported to have met the Soviet defense minister, Marshal Sergei L. Sokolov, on Wednesday, but the official Soviet news agency Tass did not say whether the two had agreed on new Soviet arms deliveries to Libya.
Tass gave no details of Gromyko’s meeting with the Syrian vice president, and official media have not said how long either he or Jalloud, deputy to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, will stay in Moscow.
Jalloud was received by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov on Tuesday.
On Monday, Gorbachev warned that any U.S. or Israeli attack on Syria or the Palestine Liberation Organization outside Israel would have “incalculable consequences,” according to Denis Healey, foreign affairs spokesman for Britain’s opposition Labor Party.
