‘Yugoslavia would be tough nut to crack’

Press, 9 December 1976, Page 8

‘Yugoslavia would be tough nut to crack’

NZPA-Reuter Belgrade President Tito, giving a warning to would-be aggressors that Yugoslavia would be a tough nut to crack, has won unstinting support from France for his country’s independent stand in Eastern Europe.

A joint communique at the end of President Giscard d’Estaing’s two-day visit —the first by a French Head of State to post-war Communist Yugoslavia — says: '“States have a right to independence, particularly in choosing their political and economic systems, and in deciding whether to join alliances or be neutral or non-aligned.” In a statement to journalists before the French President returned to Paris, Marshal Tito, who is 84. said: “T can’t say whether Yugoslavia will be attacked in the future, and at the moment I don’t know where such an attack might come from.~So,

I for the time being, there is Ino danger to Yugoslavia’s independence.” During his talks with Mr Giscard d’Estaing, President Tito was quoted by a senior Yugoslav Government official as saying: “Yugoslavia is a tough nut. Aggression would not pay.” Last month, Marshal Tito received fresh assurances from the Soviet Union leader, Mr Leonid Brezhnev, that Russia had no aggressive intentions toward Yugoslavia.

After their three rounds of talk's, the two leaders issued a .communique which laid heavy emphasis on a six-point charter designed to point the way to a fairer and more peaceful era in international relations.

One principle of the charter said that sovereign equality implied a State’s right to independence, particularly to choose freely its political and economic system, and to conduct its own external policy. This included the right to

join, or stay out of, military or political alliances, and to choose non-alignment or neutrality.

Another key passage said that real detente implied the absence of interference in the internal affairs of other States.

French officials say that Marshal Tito took pains to explain the theory of Yugoslavia's independence and non-alignment. “He seemed to want to say things clearly, so that they” would be understood in the future,” one official said. The repeated references to Yugoslavia’s independence comes amid increasing speculation about the direction the East European nation will take after President Tito disappears from the scene. He has recently been suffering from acute liver trouble, an ailment which forced a three-month postponement of President Giscard d’Estaing’s visit.