France remains apart from gasline accord

Press, 17 November 1982, Page 8

France remains apart from gasline accord

NZPA-Reuter Paris President Francois Mitterrand said yesterday that France had no part in a reported allied accord over East-West trade, but-' would continue to negotiate provided it retained full independence.

Mr Mitterrand was making his first public comment on President Ronald Reagan’s statement at the week-end that he was lifting sanctions on firms working on the Siberian gas pipeline because the allies had agreed to a plan on trade with , the Soviet bloc. Senior French officials said that the allies had reached no agreement and that France had given Mr Reagan advance warning that it would not go along with his announcement. But the officials said that France, which had taken- a tougher stance over the issue

than the other allies, had been seeking to avoid a crisis in its relations with the United States.

Answering reporters’ questions on the end of the sanctions, Mr Mitterrand said: “Good sense has won the day.” Negotiations on the general question of East-West trade were going on and the United States announcement “did not correspond to reality as far as France is concerned,” he said. “France is not party to what is perhaps not even an agreement ... we accept negotiation. (But) we do not want France’s freedom of decision to be modified by talks which have not won the acceptance of the responsible authorities.” The officials said that Mr Mitterrand had instructed the External Relations, Ministry to issue a statement

dissociating France from the reported accord.

Mr Mitterrand has said that since Mr Reagan imposed his embargo last June France would not take part in any trade-off.

In an account of the weekend events, .the officials said that the United States brought high-level pressure on its allies on Friday and early Saturday to endorse an announcement that Washington talks on the strategic aspects of trade with the Soviet bloc had reached agreement.

The timing was apparently important for Mr Reagan because lifting sanctions now would appear as a gesture to Moscow after the appointment of the new Kremlin leadership and the release of the Polish trade union leader, Lech Walesa, they said.