U.S.-U.K. team up for anti-terrorist campaign

Press, 30 April 1984, Page 10

U.S.-U.K. team up for anti-terrorist campaign

By Sidney Weiland of Reuter through NZPA London The United States and Britain are teaming up in a tough anti-terrorist campaign, with London pressing for tighter controls on diplomatic privilege. But veteran diplomats say the effort to gain a global majority for changes in rules governing interstate relations could involve trying to negotiate a political minefield.

Already, the Reagan Administration is considering acting alone if necessary in staging pre-emptive or reprisal raids against “State-sponsored” terrorist bases abroad.

The Secretary of State, Mr George Shultz, in a speech early this month, said it was “increasingly doubtful that a purely passive strategy can even begin to cope with the problem.” Washington has been con-

cerned with officially incited terrorism since American hostages were seized in Iran in 1979. Retaliatory action was considered when 241 Marines were killed in a guerrilla attack in Beirut last October. British alarm over the abuse of diplomatic rules came after a bizarre shooting incident in London on

April 17, when a young policewoman died in a burst of gunfire from the Libyan Embassy. Britain blamed Libyan radicals holed up inside the building and broke relations with the Gadaffi regime in Libya.

Mr Shultz has named Libya, along with Iran, Syria and North Korea among countries suspected of sponsoring • terrorism abroad. Some American officials have accused communist Bulgaria and East Germany of abetting terrorist activities.

Italy is investigating a Bulgarian on suspicion of being involved in an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul. Last year, according to an unofficial American tally, there were nearly 3000 bombings, kidnappings, assassinations, hijackings and other terrorist incidents world wide.

The London shooting

prompted Western officials to re-read the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations, which gives diplomats immunity from arrest regardless of what crimes they may commit. Embassy premises are also inviolate. Conceding the policewoman’s killer would probably go free, the British Home Secretary, Mr Leon Brittan, told Parliament: “What has occurred clearly raises serious questions as to the adequacy of the convention, its operation and ‘ enforceability.” Even before the shooting, Western diplomats said, President Ronald Reagan had urged that the growing problem of terrorism be aired at a seven-nation summit meeting in London on June 7. Britain has endorsed the idea, and Canada, France, West Germany, Italy and Japan are expected to go along with it.