Coalition Arabs OK Plan for Gulf Security

The Arab nations that backed the United States and its Western allies in the war against Iraq agreed Wednesday to consolidate their position in the Persian Gulf with a security system built around Egyptian and Syrian forces.

Foreign ministers of the eight states disclosed no details of the ultimate size of the Arab force, nor of the financing. But diplomats said the bills will be picked up by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other oil sheikdoms of the Gulf coast.

The anti-Iraq nations declared that the action was taken in the name of the Arab League, where they held a firm but thin majority during the Gulf crisis.

Other Arab countries were invited to join in what was termed the Damascus Declaration “if they see eye-to-eye with us,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid as he left the conference hall in a Damascus hotel.

The declaration was signed by the foreign ministers of Syria, Egypt and the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Those Arab nations that remained outside the coalition during the war included Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia and Yemen. The Palestine Liberation Organization also opposed the American-led effort that drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

While no timetable has been worked out, the Arab security force is expected to replace U.S. and other Western troops on the ground in the Gulf region. Secretary of State James A. Baker III will begin a tour of the area in the next few days, with stops planned in Damascus, Cairo and Riyadh, to discuss postwar security arrangements.

An estimated 38,000 Egyptian soldiers are based in the Gulf region now, along with about 20,000 Syrians. The statement issued here said some or all of them represent “the nucleus of an Arab peacekeeping force” in the area.

Both Cairo and Damascus support the early withdrawal of more than 400,000 Western troops, most of them Americans, who overwhelmed Iraqi forces in a seven-week air war and a 100-hour ground offensive.

While Arab cultural and religious sensibilities have been hurt by the presence of foreign troops on Saudi soil, several Gulf states have openly backed, at least, continued U.S. naval and air support in the region.

Retaining Egyptian and Syrian forces on the ground, many analysts point out, will provide a “tripwire” defense for Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, a line that would take an initial blow from a resurgent Iraq or any other potential aggressor and provide time for Western forces to gather a naval or aerial response.

The declaration condemned the Iraqi invasion and expressed “deep sorrow for what Iraqi people are undergoing as a result of the negligence of the Iraqi leadership.”

It made no mention of Iran, whose leaders insist that Tehran participate in any Gulf security arrangements and whose military dominates the eastern side of the Gulf.

The foreign ministers did, however, pick up the banner of the Palestinian issue, which was waved by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein until the last days before the ground war when, seeking a political solution under pressure from Soviet diplomacy, he no longer demanded action on the Palestinians in return for a withdrawal from Kuwait.

“Participating parties believe that convening an international peace conference under U.N. auspices is a convenient and suitable framework for ending Israeli occupation of the Arab land and for securing national rights of the Palestinian people according to relevant U.N. resolutions,” the declaration said.

Wednesday night, in consultations with the visiting foreign ministers of Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, the Arab officials demanded that the European Community press for international action on the Palestinian issue.

A member of one of the European delegations--which represent the past, present and future EC presidencies, respectively--said the Arabs made the case that the enforcement of U.N. resolutions against Iraq should be duplicated with those demanding Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories.

While Meguid, the Egyptian foreign minister, said his colleagues did not discuss Israel in their closed session, the Palestinian problem and Yasser Arafat’s PLO, which backed Iraq in the war, was obviously on their minds.

Abdallah Bishara, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council and a Kuwaiti citizen, told reporters:

“The Palestinian question has been confronted squarely, forcefully, daringly” by the ministers. He said the PLO was among the parties involved in the Arab-Israeli dispute--”an undeniable factor of instability in the region”--and should take part in any conference to discuss the problem.

But of Arafat, Bishara said: “Mr. Arafat shot from the hip. He turned his back on legitimacy (of Kuwait). . . . And more than that, he called on Palestinians to fight the Kuwaitis.

“For us as Kuwaitis, we will never forgive. He’s unpardonable (and has) lost any residue of credibility.

“I can say he is persona non grata , not only he but his cohorts who rallied to his side.”

The Kuwaiti diplomat appeared to be speaking personally and not as an official of the Gulf council.