Tunisian Officials Leaving Doubt Whether Palestinian Can Return

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TUNIS, Oct. 19 — Remarks in recent days by Tunisian officials have caused confusion about whether a Palestine Liberation Front leader, Mohammed Abbas, will be allowed back into the country. Mr.

Abbas, who has been reported to be in various countries since he was allowed to leave Italy a week ago, is wanted by the United States on charges of masterminding the operation that led to the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro and the slaying of a 69-year-old American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer. The Administration has vowed to seek to extradite Mr.

Abbas, wherever he might be. If he were to return to Tunisia, that would add friction to the already touchy relations between the United States and the Government of President Habib Bourguiba. A personal envoy of President Reagan, Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, is to visit Tunisia, possibly Sunday, in an effort to assuage continuing resentment over Mr.

Reagan’s endorsement, which was later qualified, of the Israeli bombing of Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters here on Oct. 1. Mr. Whitehead is also expected to seek a clarification about Mr. Abbas, though the United States Embassy here declined on Friday to confirm or deny that Mr. Whitehead would come. Tunisia’s Prime Minister, Mohammed Mzali, the No.

2 man in the Government after Mr. Bourguiba, indicated in a news conference in Rome on Wednesday night that Tunisia might let Mr. Abbas return to his home in Tunis. “We don’t know,” Mr. Mzali said. But, according to a tape recording of the news conference, he added that Mr. Abbas “has not requested to come back and we have not asked.”

He said the P.L.O. was taking the Prime Minister’s remarks to mean “neither yes nor no” on whether Mr. Abbas would be permitted to come back. Many P.L.O. officials have said in recent days that they doubt Mr. Abbas would try to return to Tunisia as long as he remains a source of controversy. The officials said that neither Mr. Arafat nor Mr.

Abbas wanted to force an issue that might jeopardize their sensitive relations with Tunisian authorities. Mr. Bourguiba does not like the P.L.O. presence, but he appears to have accepted the advice of Mr. Mzali and his Cabinet not to evict the Palestinians, according to officials and other informed sources.

For the time being, the Government is said to be looking for increased military aid from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and other countries to compensate for allowing the P.L.O. to keep its headquarters here, the soures said. Mr. Abbas, 38 years old, is head of a faction of the Palestine Liberation Front, which is a member of the P.L.O.

His group and others in the P.L.O. that supported Mr. Arafat were expelled from Lebanon in 1983, and last year he moved his headquarters here from Baghdad. Mr. Abbas has lived here with his wife, Rim, and her child by a previous marriage.

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"Tunisian Officials Leaving Doubt Whether Palestinian Can Return," The New York Times, 20 October 1985. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1985-025. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1985-025