Moscow threatens spy reprisals

Press, 3 February 1984, Page 6

Moscow threatens spy reprisals

NZPA-Reuter Oslo The Soviet Union has reacted sharply to Norway’s expulsion of five of its diplomats and given a warning that it may retaliate. A statement issued by the Soviet Embassy in Oslo after yesterday’s expulsion order said that the charges against the diplomats were groundless and an attempt at showing Soviet foreign policy in a bad light. Norway ordered out the five, and banned four more from re-entering the country, officially for engaging in activities “incompatible with their diplomatic status,” a phrase usually associated with spying.

The announcement came less than two weeks after the arrest of a senior Norwegian Foreign Ministry official, Arne Treholt, who has admitted spying for Moscow. The move was welcomed in Norway by Government and Opposition politicians, who described it as correct and necessary. The only dissenting view came from the Right-wing Progress Party, which said that it was too lenient

The Soviet Embassy said that the Norwegian action was harmful to relations between their two countries and an unjustifiable attempt at discrediting the work of Soviet institutions.

“Full responsibility for the consequences of this action will rest with Norwegian authorities, while (th? Soviet Union) reserves its right to take comparable measures,” the statement said. Political sources in Oslo regard it as likely that Moscow will react by expelling Norwegian diplomats. But they say that no such retaliation came when Norway expelled seven Soviet diplomats in 1977 after the arrest of a Foreign Ministry office clerk as a spy. The diplomats expelled were an embassy counsellor, Leonid Makarov, First Secretaries, Stanislav Cherbotok and Yuri Anisimov, and Mikhail Utkin and Anatoly Artamov. Informed sources said that Mr Makarov, thought to be head of K.G.B. operations in Norway, had left Norway last week, ostensibly for a holiday in the Soviet Union;

• Last year was gloomy for Soviet Intelligence agents, an American State Department report shows.

The number of Soviet citizens expelled from the United States for espionage was three times larger than in 198|<