Gromyko lashes U.S. ‘blackmail’

Press, 25 September 1980, Page 7

Gromyko lashes U.S. ‘blackmail’

NZPA-Reuter New York The Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko) has denounced what he termed an American policy of pressure and blackmail and said that Washington’s new nuclear stragegy increased the risk of war. In an address to the General Assembly in sharp contrast t 0 his more moderate remarks there in recent years, Mr Gromyko accused the United States of blatantly and rapaciously flouting internatioi a) law, especially in oil-rich areas. When'internal changes in any State were not to Washington’s liking, these were a pretext for interference,, including the dispatch of armed forces and commandos, he said.

Blatant violence was employed against Iran, and American actions in the Gulf area threatened the sovereignty not only : of that country but of other countries in the region as well, Mr Gromyko said. Meanwhile, there was a United States build-up in East Africa, particularly in Somalia, “a country whose leadership continues to make groundless territorial claims in respect of its neighbours.” Mr Gromvko said the

Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, arranged under American auspices, were anti-Arab, having as a direct consequence “unabated tensions in the Middle East, where the situation is fraught with perilous unforeseen consequences.” In the Far East, the United States was trying to strengthen its political and military positions, heating up “militarist trends that are far from wanting among certain quarters in Japan,” the Soviet Minister said. Peking was acting in unison, he said, "yet one would think that the Japanese leadership will display the ability to see things as they are and succeed in withstanding the outside influence prodding that country onto the road of hostility towards the Soviet Union, a road 'that has already led Japan to catastrophe.” The Soviet Foreign Minister'said the United States had added to the destabilising of the situation in Indo-China and South-East Asia as a whole, acting in league with China which, he said, continued demonstrations of military force on the Sino-Vietnamese border and provocations against Laos and Kampuchea.