U.S. Envoy, Mubarak Meet to Ease Tensions

President Reagan’s special envoy met with President Hosni Mubarak today and said it was “a good first step” toward easing diplomatic tensions over Egypt’s handling of the Achille Lauro hijackers and the U.S. interception of the plane carrying them out of Egypt.

John C. Whitehead, deputy secretary of state, told reporters that he gave Mubarak a letter from Reagan that “expressed his continued commitment to close U.S.-Egyptian relations and his hope that we can now put our recent differences behind us.”

Egyptian officials did not comment on Whitehead’s meeting with Mubarak. The president avoided reporters by leaving Uruba Palace, where the talks were held, through a side door. Mubarak had demanded a public apology from Reagan “for all the Egyptian people.”

Aid From U.S.

Sources in the Egyptian government, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mubarak is anxious to avoid further worsening of relations with the United States. Egypt received $2.5 billion in U.S. aid during the last fiscal year.

Whitehead came to Egypt from Italy, whose coalition government collapsed over Prime Minister Bettino Craxi’s decision to release Palestinian guerrilla leader Abdul Abbas. Abbas accompanied the four hijackers out of Egypt on an Egyptian jetliner that took off 10 hours after Mubarak said they had already left the country.

Mubarak had accused the United States of treachery for intercepting the Egyptian airliner Oct. 10 and forcing it to land in Sicily, where the hijackers were arrested and charged with piracy and the murder of an American passenger aboard the cruise ship.

Not Against the People

In a statement read to reporters after today’s meeting, Whitehead said he assured Mubarak that the U.S. takeover of the Egyptian aircraft was “in no way directed against Egypt or its people.”

“We very much regret that developments took the course that they did,” he added. “Our only object was to bring to justice criminals who had hijacked the ship, terrorized its passengers and murdered an American, a cripple in a wheelchair.”

He referred to Leon Klinghoffer, the 69-year-old New Yorker who was shot to death during the hijacking.

Whitehead left Cairo this afternoon. A State Department spokesman said Whitehead was directed by President Reagan to stop in Tunisia on another fence-mending mission before returning to Washington.

Relations between Washington and Tunis were strained by the Reagan Administration’s refusal to condemn Israel’s Oct. 1 air raid on the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters outside the Tunisian capital.

Mubarak charged in an interview broadcast Sunday night by CBS that Tunisia and the United States consulted about plans for the Egyptian plane’s flight, making the interception possible.