Arab League Asks End to Beirut Airport Boycott

TUNIS, Tunisia — The head of the Arab League on Saturday called on the United States to cancel measures it took against Beirut airport as a result of the hijacking of a TWA jetliner and the holding of Americans hostage for 16 days.

“We urge the American Administration to reconsider and cancel the measures taken against Beirut airport and Lebanese civil aviation and to conform to international laws,” said Chedli Klibi, secretary general of the Arab League.

Klibi denounced the U.S. plan as a “serious precedent in international relations” and a “flagrant contravention” of air transport agreements and said the league “stood firmly behind Lebanon.”

Following the release last Sunday of the last 39 American hostages, Washington barred flights to the United States by Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines and urged other countries to do the same. U.S. airlines were also prohibited from flying to Beirut.

Syria, meanwhile, called for retaliatory boycotts against the United States, and a caller to a Western news agency rejected Syrian mediation in the case of seven kidnaped Americans and warned that they may be killed.

Lebanon’s Muslim leaders gathered in Damascus, the capital of Syria, to work out countermeasures. Syrian newspapers, reflecting government opinion, urged Arab nations to impose a boycott against U.S. air carriers until Washington lifts its sanctions.

The government of Syrian President Hafez Assad, the main power broker in Lebanon, helped win the freedom of the 39 Americans from their Lebanese Muslim captors.

A Syrian communique to foreign missions in Beirut expressed “regret” over the U.S. sanctions, and the leading Syrian newspaper, Tishrin, accused President Reagan of mounting a “campaign of hostility” against Lebanon after Assad kept his side of the deal to free the TWA passengers.

It said Reagan has “once more shown that American credibility is null and void.”

A telephone caller, who said he spoke for Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War) rejected Syrian mediation in the case of the seven Americans, “who are with us.”

The caller said that “we hold a lot of respect for President Hafez Assad in our hearts. But we won’t release the captives except when we decide that. We equally might decide to set their souls free in the air.”

This last was viewed as a death threat.