Leaders of 37 Moslem nations and the Palestine Liberation Organization converged on this resort city today for tomorrow's opening of the Islamic summit conference, which is expected to focus on collective action against Israel. The participants' hopes of negotiating an end to the Iran-Iraq war appear to have been dashed by Iran's refusal to attend the talks. A five-man delegation returned from Teheran today after having failed to persuade the Iranians to reconsider their boycott of the meeting.
Conference sources said the Islamic nations had hoped to mediate the four-month-old war between Iran and Iraq. But Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian leader, said yesterday that Iran would boycott the conference because President Saddam Hussein of Iraq would be present. Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf's largest oil exporter and the host for the conference, has expressed concern that the war might spread to neighboring countries.
A number of Moslem nations besides Iran will not be represented at the conference. Libya is boycotting the meeting to express its displeasure over the basing of United States radar surveillance planes in Saudi Arabia since the outbreak of the Persian Gulf war. Afghanistan was banned from the conference because its Sovietbacked Government is trying, with the help of Soviet troops, to put down Moslem rebels. Egypt was excluded because of its peace treaty with Israel.
The summit meeting will hold its opening session tomorrow in the open-air courtyard of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, birthplace of Islam. Security was extremely tight in the area, the site of fighting a year ago between Saudi security forces and Moslem extremists who occupied the mosque.
The agenda calls for talks on the Palestinian cause and ways of putting pressure on Israel to yield Arab territories occupied during the 1967 Mideast war. The Islamic nations are especially concerned about Israel's control of largely Arab East Jerusalem, which contains one of Islam's holiest shrines, the Al Aksa Mosque. The conference, including nations representing some 800 million Moslems, is calling itself the ''Palestine and Jerusalem summit'' and is expected to reach a rapid consensus on an anti-Israeli program, a Saudi delegate said. ''While the aim of the summit is to put Islamic 'swords into plowshares,' resolutions on economic and political sanctions against the enemies of the Islamic nations are perfectly relevant,'' he said.
No official indication was given of specific actions to put pressure on Israel. But political sources said the campaign would probably be directed against Israel's supporters in Western Europe and the United States.
Source: New York Times
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