Carter Sees Syrian Bid to Free Hostages

Former President Jimmy Carter, saying Syrian troops are slowly taking control of Beirut “street by street,” predicted Sunday that Syrian President Hafez Assad will do everything he can to win the release of eight U.S. hostages held by Muslim extremists in Lebanon.

Carter, who met privately with Assad on March 22 in Damascus, said the Syrian leader believes it would be to Syria’s advantage to secure the release of American and other hostages.

“I think that Assad sees, for his own selfish benefit, that any progress that he can make in identifying, locating and helping to extract American hostages would be a great feather in his cap,” Carter said.

“So, I am sure that he is trying to send this signal of peace and humanitarianism to the rest of the world to overcome some of the criticism he has suffered lately.”

The former President, interviewed on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” from Tel Aviv, where he is winding up a five-nation Middle East trip, said Assad “assured me that he does not know” the whereabouts of the hostages. But he said he believes that Assad would like to know where the hostages are.

As Syrian troops tighten their control over strife-torn Beirut, the chances of finding the hostages will increase, Carter added.

Contacts Banned

Ever since the days Carter was in the White House, the U.S. government has included Syria on its list of nations that promote terrorism. The Reagan Administration recently banned all “high-level” contacts with Syria and imposed other sanctions after a Syrian intelligence officer was implicated in a plot to blow up an Israeli airliner carrying more than 200 Americans.

Carter said Assad claimed that Syrian policy opposes terrorism and that the government would punish any Syrians found to be implicated in terrorist activities. But the former President conceded that “I have no way to know if his statements to me are accurate.”

Carter, whose mediation between then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978 established the high-water mark of U.S. Middle East diplomacy and led to an Israeli-Egypt peace treaty, urged President Reagan to become more active in efforts to bring Israel and its Arab adversaries to the peace table.

He said the Administration apparently does not place Mideast peace in its “top two-dozen priorities.”

“I hope that the Reagan Administration will change, will elevate Mideast peace to a high priority in the last two years and be successful,” he said.

Carter said he believes that Jordan, Egypt, Syria and the Palestinians would attend an international peace conference with Israel if Washington applied the pressure necessary to bring all of the parties to the table.