United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim arrived in Syria on Monday (August 27) on the first stage of a tour of the Middle East to review the situation there.
His Middle East visit – the first since he became Secretary-General – will take him to Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Cyprus.
Mr. Waldheim was greeted at Damascus Airport by the Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdel-Halim Khaddam. He had a ninety-minute meeting with Mr. Khaddam on Monday and called on President Hafez Al-Assad the next day. Syria has never before agreed to receive such a high-ranking U.N. official and has rejected previous UN resolutions on the Middle-East. The official government newspaper. Al-Baath, said on Tuesday that Syria would not accept any new United Nations’ plan but would use every means to liberate territory occupied by Israel.
The Secretary-general will go straight on from this tour to the conference of non-aligned nations opening in Algiers on September 5th. There has been intense diplomatic activity int he Middle-East to prepare for the conference, including a secret visit to Syria by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
