Carter deadline 'a misimpression’

Press, 16 April 1980, Page 1

Carter deadline 'a misimpression’

NZPA-Reuter Washington President Carter has not set a deadline for United States allies to initiate sanctions or break relations with Iran, United States State Department officials have said. The officials said Mr Carter had left a “misimpression” in a week-end interview in which he told European television correspondents there was “a specific date” by which the United States expected success in “this common effort.” ‘ ” In the interview’, the President said: “We have sent to the heads of (allied) nations, all those represented by you, a specific date at which time we would expect this common effort to be successful.” The United States Government has been trying to get allied nations to join in new sanctions that Mr Carter announced last week in an effort to force Iran to free the 50 American hostages it has held since November 4. Mr Carter, broke relations with Iran more than a week ago. ' United States officials, speaking privately, said the President’s reference had been misunderstood as a deadline for the allies, when it referred to a deadline for Iranian action. One White House official also said the so-called deadline involved both Iran and the allies. . “If progress . is not made, then there is a time

frame by which we’d hope the allies would act,” he said. “If Iran acts, then everything goes out the window. If there is no progress, we do expect and hope the allies would meet the actions we’re taking.” Officials said Mr Carter wanted action from Iran by mid-May, but had not set a specific date. ■■■ They declined to elaborate' on what the next American steps might be in the long stalemate. Although the officials said the Administration was not setting a deadline for allied co-operation, they said there was hope that friendly nations would act to impose economic sanctions after European Common Market Foreign • Ministers met on April 21. The State Department publicly dismissed the significance of a Red Cross visit to the United States hostages in Teheran, but acknowledged that it could be helpful to the, captives and their families. A State Department spokesman, Mr Hcfdding Carter, said that if the Red Cross representatives saw all 50 Americans in the embassy independently and were able to report on their condition “it will be a plus.” A spokeswoman at the Geneva headquarters of the International Red Cross said the Iranian Government had agreed to allow the Swiss represen-

tatives of the agency to meet all the hostages, make a list of their identities, and notify the captives’ .families of the state of their health. A spokesman for the militants holding the hostages said the Red Cross visit was “imposed” on them by the Iranian Government. Apparently Iranian officials had hopes that . allowing the Red Cross visit would injure Presi- . dent Carter’s effort to get • the United States allies to impose sanctions on Iran. The Red Cross officials have said the hostages are .in good health, but doubts still linger over exactly how many Americans are being held. Two International Red Cross officials, the Teheran representative, Mr Harald Schmid de' Grueneck and Dr Bernard Liebeskind, spent eight hours interviewing the hostages individually. They were accompanied by three Iranian observers and two Iranian doctors. Mr Schmid de Grueneck conceded that the visit had not conformed to normal Red Cross conditions since it had been held in the presence of . the student captors and other Iranian observers, in-, .eluding a Teheran religious leader, the Minister of Health and a Red Lion and Sun (Iranian Red Cross) official. But he said he overlooked this out of concern for the hostages’ families..