Arms issue clouded Kohl’s Israeli visit

Press, 31 January 1984, Page 10

Arms issue clouded Kohl’s Israeli visit

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem The West German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, returned home yesterday from Israel, the two countries deeply divided over arms sales to Saudi Arabia. At the start of his fiveday visit Dr Kohl said that he hoped it would help bridge “the terrible chasm of the past,” a reference to the World War II Nazi massacre of six million Jews.

But Western diplomats questioned whether in the shortterm the trip had not aggravated the sensitive ties between the two countries by focusing so much attention on the arms question.

The West Germans said in advance that they hoped the issue would not be played up. But Dr Kohl came under intense pressure throughout his visit not to provide Israel’s Arab enemies, particularly Saudi Arabia, with any military hardware.

He told a news conference before he left that he had received “very urgent” representations from all Israeli leaders, but he left the clear impression that an

arms deal with Saudi Arabia was a distinct possibility. Bonn is reported to have agreed in principle to sell the Saudis equipment, though not the Leopard 2 battle tank. The West German Government's spokesman, Peter Boenisch, repeatedly told reporters that there had been no specific request from Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Western diplomats said that the publicity of the last week had not made it any easier for Bonn to make its decision, leaving it with the option of upsetting either Israel or the Arabs. Israeli officials reported that, during four rounds of talks, the Prime Minister, Mr Yitzhak Shamir, had made it clear that any arms deal would be deeply resented by Israel on moral grounds and would damage the carefully nurtured bilateral relationship.

Dr Kohl said that West Germany would consider the interests of all countries in the region before making a decision.

Back home, Dr Kohl was expected to decide today

whether his Defence Minister, Mr Manfred Woerner, would keep his post in the face of the storm over the sacked general, Guenther Kiessling.

Government sources said that Dr Kohl would discuss the ramifications of the case with Mr Woerner, whose resignation has been demanded by the Opposition Social Democratic Party.

Mr Woerner has been under pressiure to resign because of growing doubts about evidence that Genera] Kiessling had frequented homosexual haunts and was therefore a security risk. General Kiessling, one of N.A.T.O.’s two Deputy Supreme Commanders until his dismissal by Mr Woerner last month, has consistently denied being in a bar in Cologne, where four eye-witnesses said that they had seen him.

Alfred Biehl, chairman of the Parliamentary Defence Committee studying the Kiessling case, said yesterday that military Intelligence, which was responsible for the case against General Kiessling, appeared to have been guilty of careless mistakes.