- Title: EGYPT: UNITED BY STAGES AGREED BETWEEN PRESIDENTS SADAT AND GADDAFI
- Date: 29th August 1973
- Summary: 1. SV Gaddafi, Jalloud & Meheishi (L-R) 0.08 2. CU PAN Sadat walks out and shakes hands with Gaddafi and Msheishi 0.27 3. SV The four men seated. 0.48 4. CU'S Sadat and Gaddafi (2 shots) 0.54 5. SV All seated. 0.59 6. CU Jalloud and Meheishi and Sadat (3 shots) 1.07 7. CU ZOOM Sadat to MV him seated with Gaddafi and Jalloud. 1.20 Initials PD/JS/4.02 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 13th September 1973 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: CAIRO, EGYPT
- Country: Egypt
- Reuters ID: LVA1TI93RANHWHKBVX34KM2Z83JJ
- Story Text: A round of intense eleventh-hour bargaining now appears to have saved the merger between Egypt and Libya which many observers thought damaged in July when 20,000 Libyans tried to march on Cairo to demand an immediate merger.
Libyan President Colonel Gaddafi arrived unannounced in Cairo at the weekend (25 August) accompanied by his Prime Minister Mr. Abdel Salem Jalloud. The two men then waited for President Anwar Sadat's return on Monday after five days of talks in Saudi Arabia with other Arab leaders regarding the use of oil as a bargaining weapon against Israel.
On Wednesday (29th August) an announcement was made that the unification of Egypt and Libya would proceed. But it fell far short of the immediate merger that Colonel Gaddafi had demanded. Instead there'll be a merger by stages.
The announcement said that a joint Constituent Assembly with fifty members from each state would be set up on Saturday (September 1) and other measures would also be brought into effect then including the establishment of an economic free zone on the Egyptian-Libyan border and the exchange of resident Ministers.
But the proposed referendum on the merger which was to have taken place then has been postponed and no alternative date announced.
Draft laws already worked out for the merger will be referred to the Unified Political Command -- made up of President Sadat and Colonel Gaddafi -- for further study.
A new common currency -- the dinar -- is also to be introduced on Saturday.
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