Jet-sale pressure denied

Press, 3 October 1983, Page 10

Jet-sale pressure denied

NZPA-Reuter New York

Authoritative French source yesterday denied reports that the United States had put pressure on France to reconsider the delivery of new aircraft to Iraq. )/

The source said that Paris and Washington /had agreed that the main problem in the war was to bring Iran to the negotiating table — not the five Super ;Etendard fighter-bombers that France has promised to supply to Iraq. On Saturday, Iran sharply attacked France for delivering arms to Iraq and threatened to block shipments through the strategic Straits of Hormuz, cutting off oil supplies to the West. Diplomats in Teheran said that they believed Iran would follow up on the threat. The American State Department said that it “would view with great ’ concern” any attempt to block the waterway, while Iraq said

that it would retaliate if Iran restricted traffic in the Gulf. But well-informed French sources, saying that the word “pressure” had disappeared from the Franco-American vocabulary, played down the importance of what they saw as Iranian blackmail.

They said that Teheran’s move had upset other countries in the region, generating new support for Iraq from its neighbours. But the sources declined to say whether the planes had already been delivered to Iraq from France’s Landivisiau airbase, where Iraqi pilots trained on them for several months.

France was expected to supply the planes last month, but the shipment was delayed. Reports quoting American officials said that Washington had requested Paris to reconsider the deal for fear that Iran would close the Gulf to oil

traffic. One-sixth of the West’s oil passes through the Straits of Hormuz, and the United States has said that it would use force if necessary to keep Gulf sealanes open. France has said that delivery of the super Etendards would give Iraq greater leverage in its attempts to convince Iran to negotiate an end to the three-year-old war, in which tens of thousands have died.

Despite repeated appeals from Iraq and the world community, Iran has consistently refused to negotiate.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said that the Reagan Administration “deplores continuation and extension of the fighting ... and urges the parties to agree to a ceasefire.”

On Friday Iran said that 55 people had been killed and 255 injured when Iraqi rockets struck two towns.