Polish conditions getting worse, says Reagan

Press, 21 January 1982, Page 6

Polish conditions getting worse, says Reagan

NZPA-Reuter Washington President Reagan started his second year in office yesterday after warning Moscow and Warsaw that the United States was ready to take further economic reprisals against them unless the Polish - situation improved. Conditions in Poland were deteriorating, people were still being held in prison and the martial-law authorities had not communicated with the Polish people or the independent trade union Solidarity, he said yesterday. Addressing a press conference on the eve of the first anniversary of his taking office, Mr Reagan said the sanctions he imposed after the military crack-down last month were working and he was not prepared to wait forever for improvements before invoking new reprisals. On December 23, the President halted further ex-port-import bank credits to Warsaw and suspended Pol-

ish fishing rights and airline landing rights in the United States. Later, charging that Moscow was responsible for the Polish clamp-down, he imposed sanctions against the Soviet Union which included bans on the export bf high technology, a move aimed at hampering construction of. a natural-gas pipeline between Siberia and Western Europe. Administration officials have said further measures could include declaring Poland in default on its Western debts, embargoing American grain sales to the Soviet Union, and cancelling United States Soviet nucleararms limitation talks.

However, the Agriculture Secretary (Mr John Block) yesterday declined to comment oh the likelihood of a total trade embargo, saying that if the Polish crisis worsened one possible option open to Mr Reagan would be to stop credits to other East European countries for the purchase of American food.

President Reagan also said at the news conference that he hoped Israel and Egypt could come up with a plan by April 25, when the turnover of the Sinai to Egypt was scheduled for completion, for proceeding towards autonomy for Palestinians living in the occupied areas. Mr Reagan spent most of the press conference defending his domestic policies and actions, admitting that he was at fault for allowing a controversial ruling to go through giving tax exemptions to colleges that discriminated against blacks.

The President said he was opposed to racial segregation with “every fibre of my being” and shouldered the blame for passing a January 8 Treasury Department ruling that ended an 11-year-old ban on the tax exemptions and for failing to react until four days later. The President has now asked Congress to enact legislation outlawing tax benefits for discriminatory bodies.