Hussein Calls for Unity as Summit Opens : Jordan’s Leader Says Division Is ‘Basic Sickness’ of Arab Body

Arab leaders opened an emergency summit conference here Sunday, but their quest for unity was overshadowed by an Iranian missile attack on Baghdad and the reported Palestinian guerrilla hijacking of a pleasure boat off the Israeli coast.

“Disunity is the basic sickness of the Arab body,” Jordan’s King Hussein told the heads of state and senior officials of the 21 members of the organization.

The conference was convened at Saudi Arabia’s request to formulate a joint Arab strategy toward non-Arab Iran in the wake of attacks against Kuwait and violence in the holy Saudi city of Mecca involving Iranian religious pilgrims.

The summit is also expected to be asked to endorse Hussein’s efforts to convene an international conference on the Middle East and help resolve Egypt’s status eight years after the Arab League broke off relations with the Cairo government because of its peace treaty with Israel.

Longtime Enemies

With delegates from all members of the Arab League--20 Arab nations plus the Palestine Liberation Organization--in attendance, this conference is the first to include the entire membership since a summit in 1979.

The participants include such longtime enemies as Syria’s President Hafez Assad and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein; Lebanese President Amin Gemayel, who has also feuded with Assad, and PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who at one time or another has been in opposition to almost every Arab leader, especially King Hussein.

As the leaders sat down for their first day of talks--conducted in secrecy at the hastily prepared Royal Palace of Culture--Iran announced that it had fired two missiles into Baghdad, causing a number of casualties. The Iraqi government acknowledged one missile explosion in the capital and reported a number of civilian casualties.

The announcement brought home the continuing tension in the gulf caused by the long-running Iran-Iraq War, which has escalated recently to include clashes between Iran and the U.S. naval forces sent to the gulf to escort Kuwaiti tankers.

The conference is expected to adopt a resolution condemning Iranian aggression and calling for implementation of U.N. cease-fire resolutions, but Syria--which has been all but alone among Arab nations in its support for Iran--is believed ready to block any tougher measures against the Tehran regime.

“Not for one single moment can we forget the increasing dangers that threaten the security of our countries in the gulf as a result of this war,” said Arab League Secretary General Chedli Klibi at the start of the meeting.

Klibi said it was permissible for Arab states to “adopt all possible measures to ensure the defense and protection of our Arab people against any form of aggression or domination.”

In his opening remarks, King Hussein appealed for Arab unity in the face of Iranian aggression, a message he has repeated frequently in the past 18 months as he tried to reconcile bickering Syria and Iraq as well as Lebanon and Syria.

“Danger threatens us all, and it is not confined to one party rather than the other,” the Jordanian king told the gathered leaders. “Once it hits one country, it spreads out all over our countries.”

While Libya sent a delegation to the meeting, its leader, Col. Moammar Kadafi, stayed away, as did Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, Morocco’s King Hassan II and Zine Abidine ben Ali, Tunisia’s new president, who deposed the aging Habib Bourguiba on Saturday.

Libya Assails Egypt

In a commentary reported by the Libyan news agency, the Kadafi government warned the gathered leaders not to bring Egypt back into the Arab fold.

“Any rapprochement between the gulf states and the Egyptian regime is in fact an alliance with the Zionist enemy,” the news agency said, in a reference to Israel.

There is widespread expectation that the gulf states will restore relations with Cairo after the summit meeting because they hope to get Egyptian military aid as a defense against threats of aggression from Iran. There have been reports of Egyptian advisers in Kuwait already, but these have been officially denied.