Vance to woo U.S. allies

Press, 20 February 1980, Page 8

Vance to woo U.S. allies

NZPA-Reuter Washington The American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) will leave on a four-nation West European tour today to discuss long-term co-ordination of allied strategy in response to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Mr Vance will hold talks in Bonn and in Rome. He will then go on to Paris and London and return to Washington on Friday. The Paris visit had hung in the balance after France refused to take part in a meeting of five Foreign Ministers planned for Bonn. The French said news leaks made the meeting look like a provocation and revival of the cold war. Mr Vance reacted to this by saying he would by-pass Paris but later he changed his mind.

“We - need .to discuss longtermi strategy, Western interests, not just .American interests, are involved and France is a major partner,” a senior State Department official said -in explaining the decision. French and West German officials have taken exception to the Carter Administration’s handling of the Afghan crisis on three counts: specific American retaliatory steps, Mr Carter’s rhetoric, and his alleged failure to consult adequately with America’s allies. Last week, the West German Chancellor (Mr Helmut Schmidt) was reported to have complained that Mr Carter gave only a few hours’ notice before calling for a boycott of the Moscow Olympics if Soviet troops are in Afghanistan after today.

An outline of long-term Western strategy towards the Soviet Union after Afghanistan has begun emerging in the form of different steps by different countries — what 1 the West Germans have described as “a division of labour.”

Mr Vance hopes to improve co-ordination so that each country knows what the other will be doing and when, officials said. In New Delhi, a usually reliable source has said that rebel forces killed more than 100 Afghan Government troops and members of the ruling Khalq Party in a recent battle in the rugged mountains of north-eastern Afghanistan, heartland of the nation’s anti-Communist rebellion.

In Moscow, the Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko) has promised West- European countries that the Kremlin is. ready to continue disarmament talks, but has warned the' United States that Moscow would not allow it to obtain military superiority. Mr Gromyko said in a speech quoted by the- Tass news agency that the Soviet Union had:., no choice but to draw the appropriate conclusions for its--., security from Washington’s tendency to play the “Chinese Card?’