E.E.C. diplomats to leave Iran to discuss Carter call

Press, 15 April 1980, Page 8

E.E.C. diplomats to leave Iran to discuss Carter call

4ZPA-Reuter Teheran Heads of missions of the European Economic Comnunity countries, under leavy pressure from Washngton, will return to their :apitals today for consultaions about the continued deention of the American hosages at the occupied United States embassy in Teheran. But diplomatic sources ;aid yesterday that several European ambassadors were eluctant to leave Iran at this itage of the United StatesTanian crisis, and expected o return to Teheran as soon is possible. The United States severed liplomatic ties with Iran ■arly last week over the hos:age crisis, imposed an iconomic embargo on Teheran, and strongly urged its lilies to follow suit.

“The E.E.C. countries are under extreme pressure from Washington and had to do something, but the intention is that they (the ambassadors) will all return to Teheran,” one European diplomat said. Diplomatic sources said that one E.E.C. ambassador had formally recommended against his own recall, but had been overruled by his Government. The United States Assistant Secretary of State (Mr Warren Christopher) said in a television interview yesterday that Washington wanted its allies to impose an economic embargo on Iran in the next few weeks, possibly by next Monday. But most E.E.C. diplomats in Teheran said they would oppose such a move, which would probably entail a cutoff of Iranian oil supplies to their countries and plight force Iran to look' to the Soviet bloc for supplies and technical assistance it could otherwise get from the West. The only sign of a slight easing in the 163-day-old hostage crisis was an invitation from the militant students occupying the United States mission to a Red Cross representative to visit their captives.

The visit was expected to go ahead today, and a Red Cross doctor has flown in from Geneva to take part. But .it remained unclear whether the students and the Red Cross could agree on acceptable conditions for the inspection. The students invited the Red Cross permanent representative in Teheran, Mr Harald Schmid de Grueneck, as part of a delegation including the Teheran religious chief, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Ali Khamenei, the Health Minister (Mr Moussa Zargar), and a member of the Red Lion and Sun Society—lran’s equivalent of the Red Cross. Normal Red Cross procedures stipulate that the Red Cross official must be able to interview each detainee separately, inspect each detainee’s normal place of incarceration, and enable each detainee to complete a confidential questionnaire about detention conditions. Officials in Geneva, the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said they were still awaiting notification that the visit could go ahead. A student spokesman said Mr Schmid de Grueneck could see all the hostages, but refused to say on what conditions. Two previous Red Cross visits to the occupied mission ended with the officials seeing only 13 hostages in the presence of the militants, and were described by one diplomat as “a propaganda stunt for the students.” A senior Iranian religious leader visited the revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, yesterday carrying a request from a group of Iraqi exiles for the Ayatollah to head a Muslim opposition movement to the Bagdad Government of President Saddam Hussein. Sources said after the meeting that Ayatollah Khomeiny had declined to talk in terms of leadership, but had said he would stand by all Iraqi Muslims.

The furious war of words between Teheran and Bagdad continued, the Iranian Foreign Minister (Mr Sadeq Qotbzadeh) calling President Hussein an American puppet to a gathering of Arab ambassadors. The border between the : two countries, where both armies are reported to be on ■ full alert and receiving reinforcements, had been calm for the three days. President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr toured border i areas and met some of the 15,000 refugees deported by the Bagdad authorities in the last 10 days, before flying on to the vital oil-producing province of Khuzestan, ■ where Iraqi-backed Arab I guerrillas are waging a campaign of sabotage against i the Teheran authorities. Iraq has issued a fresh de- • mand for the immediate i withdrawal of Iranian troops • from three strategic islands : in the Gulf. The call, the second within a week, came in a cable ' from the Iraqi Foreign Min- ! ister (Dr Saadoun Hammadi) I to the Cuban leader, Dr Fidel Castro. Addressed to Dr Castro in his capacity as chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Iraqi message said Iran’s occupation of the three is- ' lands was illegal, and that the Teheran Government was following racist and expansionist policies. The cable was published by the Iraqi News Agency. Dr Hammadi levelled similar charges against Iran in a message to the United Nations Secretary-General (Dr Kurt Waldheim) last week. The three islands — Abu Musa an<F the Greater and Lesser Tumbs — were occupied by forces of the deposed Shah of Iran in 1971. They control the Straits of Hormuz through which much of the west’s oil supplies pass. The Iranian President (Mr Abolhassan BaniSadr) has said Iran will never leave the islands.