Syria’s Vice President Confers With Gromyko

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.

Healey was one of a group of British members of Parliament who met Gorbachev in the Kremlin.

In his meeting with Jalloud on Tuesday, Gorbachev condemned the U.S. air raid on Libya on April 15, and Tass said that vigilance and a high level of defense capacity are needed in case of future American attacks.

The meetings Gorbachev and Ryzhkov held with Jalloud were the first between leaders of the two countries since the U.S. bombing raid staged to punish Libya for its purported pro-terrorism policy.

Western diplomats, speaking on condition that they not be identified, said they expected the visits by the top Libyan and Syrian leaders to provide a forum for anti-American rhetoric and common criticism of U.S. and Israeli policies in the Middle East.

The diplomats said they doubted that Jalloud’s visit will result in a Soviet agreement to a long-planned treaty of friendship and solidarity with Libya.

Discussions on the treaty were said to be well advanced during a visit to Moscow by Jalloud three years ago.

But a visit by Kadafi last October ended without the North African country getting the treaty that it reportedly still seeks.