and Israel By 1969, Nasser had formed an alliance with Jordan's King Hussein and started to move towards cementing peace with Israel in exchange for the return of the Sinai Peninsula and the formation of a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. On September 28, 1970, Nasser died of a heart attack and his vice president Anwar Sadat succeeded him. Though Sadat sought to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union, he was also willing to consider economic assistance from nations outside the Arab region and the Eastern Bloc as well. In 1971, Sadat, hoping to help the nation's economy recover from its losses in the Six-Day War, officially changed the UAR's name back to Egypt and signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union. In 1972, however, the direction of Soviet-Egypt relations changed dramatically when Sadat ordered Soviet military personnel to leave the country. Throughout the remainder of the 1970s, Sadat developed strong relations with the Western powers, repealed Egypt's Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union in March 1976, made peace with Israel in March 1979 following the Camp David Accords—where it was agreed that Israel would depart from the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for making the area a demilitarized zone and that Egypt would not seek claims to a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in exchange for annual economic and military aid from the United States—and distanced Egypt from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union now focused on building relations with its three other principal allies in the Middle East: Syria, Iraq and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). PLO In 1964, Nasser and other Arab League in Cairo Summit 1964 initiated the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization to represent the Palestinian people. Despite establishing ties with the new organization, the Soviet government also feared the PLO would weaken their influence in the Arab region and reacted with skepticism towards the group's leadership. Following the Six-Day War, however, Soviet influence would further increase in the Arab region and PLO would follow suit. In March 1968, Yasser Arafat and his Fatah organization gained international attention and popularity in the Arab region when it engaged in a full-scale battle with the Israel Defense Force at the city of Karameh in Jordan, in which 150 Palestinians and 29 Israelis were killed. Two months later, Fatah would join the