‘Iranian chaos new threat to hostages’

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 1

‘Iranian chaos new threat to hostages’

NZPA-Reuter Washington

President Carter has said that he believes political and economic order in Iran is deteriorating rapidly, posing a fresh threat to the 50 American hostages who have been held in Teheran for more than five months.

“There is a volatile political situation in Iran,” Mr Carter said in a television interview.

' Referring to the hostages seized when militant students took over the United States Embassy on November 4, Mr Carter sounded a note, of impatience when he said: “I don’t know how much

longer we can sit here and see them kept captive while the position deteriorates.”

, Asked whether any military action to rescue the hostages might put them in jeopardy, Mr Carter said: “I consider them in jeopardy now.” ■ In Iran, the official Pars news agency reported yesterday that at least three persons had been killed and more than 160 injured in fighting between Muslim .fundamentalists and Left-wing

students at Teheran University. ' > However, Mr Carter, who recently broke diplomatic relations with Iran and banned most trade because of the hostage crisis, emphasised in his remarks about deterioration that he did not mean only the university clashes in Teheran and elsewhere. “I think that the structure of the Government, the social structure, and the economical structure lately are deteriorating fairly rapidly, and I constantly worry about and pray for the safety of those hostages,” he said. Mr Carter said that he

wished to dissuade relatives of the hostages from trying to visit them, in spite of the success of Mrs Barbara Timm in seeing her son, Mr Kevin Hermening, in Teheran on Monday. A ban on' most travel to Iran by Americans officially took effect yesterday, but Mr Carter said

that he was prepared to consider individual cases on their merits. “I would discourage it, but I would have to make a judgment on the final action in each case,” he said. Further stories, Page 8