Call for neutral Afghanistan

Press, 21 February 1980, Page 6

Call for neutral Afghanistan

NZPA-Reuter Bonn v The American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) will today discuss with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies a Common Market proposal to declare Afghanistan a neutral State prior to. a Soviet troop withdrawal- . -.:' , . Mr Vance, who arrived in West Germany this week on the first leg of a four-nation West European tour, was briefed by the West German Foreign Minister (Mr HansDietrich Genscher) on the proposal. The Secretary of State is making the trip to discuss long-term co-ordination of Western strategy in response to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. He will have more talks with Mr Genscher before going to Rome. He will visit France and Britain after that.

Mr Vance in talks with Mr Genscher was expected to repeat President Carter’s call for a boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow this summer. West Germany has so far stopped short of all-out. support for a boycott.

A senior United States official on Mr Vance’s plane expressed scepticism at the Common Market proposal for a neutral Afghanistan, adopted in Rome by the nine member States yesterday. The intention is to place Afghanistan outside the realm of competition between the big Powers. “The idea of a neutral Afghanistan is appealing to all. How that is achieved is a much more complex matter,” the official said.

Mr Vance would try to! convince N.A.T.O. allies this week that a firm, co-ordi-nated response to Soviet intervention would lay a basis for improved EastWest relations, the official said. | The British Foreign Secretary (Lord Carrington), who launched the neutrality idea at a regular one-daj' meeting of Market' Foreign Ministers, told reporters such a move could enable the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan on a perfectly respectable basis. Lord Carrington said there was the precedent of Austria in 1955, when the State Parliament declared itself neutral and . that neutrality was guaranteed by the four occupying Powers. “It can be the Powers which surround Afghanistan which guarantee its security,”, he said. Lord' Carrington added that the idea was obviously still in its infancy, and the next stage was to discuss it with the United States, the Soviet Union, and the other countries of the region. Lord Carrington also reminded his colleagues that Afghanistan was declared neutral in the nineteenth century by agreement between the rival Russian and British empires. Common Market sources said the Market commission president (Mr Roy Jenkins) told the meeting it would not be acceptable if Soviet troops withdrew and left a puppet Communist regime behind, but the Kremlin should also be reassured that the American Central Intelligence Agency would not move in either.