U.S. considers Libya boycott

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 9

U.S. considers Libya boycott

NZPA-Reuter Washington The United States is considering a boycott on oil from Libya as it reviews its policy towards the radical Government of Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, the State Department has said. The Department’s spokesman, Dean Fischer told reporters that the Reagan Administration deplored Libya’s “lawless behaviour ” which he said included “international terrorism and subversion against other governments.” He said: “One option under consideration in the. review is that possibility (an oil boycott), but I wouldn’t want to go beyond that.” Mr Fischer said he was sticking to a statement made by President Reagan last month when he rejected a proposal by the former President, Richard Nixon, for

an American economic boycott of Libya. Mr Reagan said at the time; “It would have to be world-wide. Noone country could affect them by having a boycott.” President Reagan also said then that if the United States stopped buying Libyan oil there- would be plenty of other customers; Mr Fischer said that the department was weighing various factors, including Libya’s announced withdrawal of troops from neighbouring Chad, last week’s decision by the biggest oil company in the world Exxon, to pull out of Libya, and a sharp fall in American imports of Libyan oil in recent months.

The spokesman said the United States would welcome Libya’s withdrawal from Chad if it was completed and if it contributed to peace in

the area but added: "that remains to be seen.”

He said a planned American acceleration of arms to Sudan, which has felt threatened by Libya, would go ahead despite Libya’s- announced withdrawal from Chad.

The United States expelled Libya’s diplomats from Washington last May, and last week the Secretary of State (Mr Alexander Haig) suggested Libya was. behind the attempted assassination of an American diplomat in Paris. Relations between the two countries reached a low point last August when United States Navy planes shot down two Libyan jets over the Mediterranean, saying the Libyan aircraft-had attacked them.

Libya said the American planes had violated its territorial limits.