Afghanistan looms large in N.Z. defence stance

Press, 25 February 1980, Page 1

Afghanistan looms large in N.Z. defence stance

NZPA Washington The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Taiboys, arrived in Washington last evening for what is being called the most important A.N.Z.U.S. Pact council meeting for years.

The annual meeting .of A.N.Z.U.S. — the pact under which the United States guarantees the security of New Zealand and Australia — was to have been held in Wellington in the middle of the year, but was brought forward and switched to Washington after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The situation in Afghanistan, international and regional repercussions of the Soviet move, and Western reactions to it, are bound to dominate the two-day meeting; which will begin tomorrow. Mr Taiboys will spend today on bilateral dis-

cussions on all aspects of i New Zealand’s relations < with the United States. Mr Taiboys said on his < arrival in Washington: ’ “The A.N.Z.U.S. meeting < has taken on a fresh, im- 1 portance this year in the 1 light of the tension since < events in Afghanistan, i which certainly have their i significance for New Zealand and the Pacific. 1 “The circumstances are different from those of any • 1 other A.N.Z.U.S. meeting.” < The United States has : already won public support from New Zealand and Australia for its retaliatory ' measures against the Soviets. It is now seeking to co-ordinate the allied approach to ensuring the

security of the Persian Gulf-Asian Pacific region. The American Secretary of State (Mr Cyrus Vance) will lead the American delegation. The Australian team will be headed by the Foreign Minister (Mr Andrew Peacock) and the Defence Minister (Mr Jim Killen). Defence chiefs of all three countries will attend. Mr Talboys’s Washington programme opens today with a series of meetings on New ZealandUnited. States questions with top officials in the Carter Administration, He will see Mr Vance, President Carter’s national security adviser (Mr Zbigniew Brezezinski), and the

Agriculture Secretary (Mr Bob Bergland), before having a dinner with Congressional leaders. Mr Vance is expected particularly to question Mr Taiboys on the International Monetary Fund working committee meeting on the status of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which he chaired in Paris. Mr Taiboys, for his part, is likely to emphasise that the A.N.Z.U.S. council meeting should not overlook the Pacific in its concentration on the more immediate problems the Western world faces in the Persian Gulf and on the Afghanistan-Iran situation.