Jittery Gulf States in emergency talks

Press, 18 May 1984, Page 6

Jittery Gulf States in emergency talks

NZPA-Reuter Bahrain Gulf countries touched by the shock-waves of war between Iran and Iraq were holding emergency talks today against a background of mounting international concern about stepped-up attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf. The six Foreign Ministers of the Gulf Co-operation Council gathered in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, to try to co-ordinate some response to the missile attack on a Saudi supertanker on Wednesday, seen widely as the most serious development yet in the 43-month war.

One of the six, Kuwait, has alleged openly that the aircraft which attacked two of its tankers earlier this week came from Iran.

In Washington State Department officials said that the United States also believed Iranian aircraft had attacked the tanker, the Saudi-owned Yanbu Pride, off the coast of Saudi Arabia.

Options for the Gulf countries are limited although all of them — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates — have invested heavily in defence.

Saudi Arabia alone has an Air Force of about 175 combat aircraft including the

United States-built Eagle interceptor. But the council set up three years ago to meet the threat to regional security imposed by the Iran-Iraq war, has so far not realised its plan for integrated air defence. The attack on the Yanbu Pride was the fifth to be launched on oil tankers in the Gulf in three days. Fire broke out in a starboard hold, but was later put out and no injuries were reported among the crew of 30. It sent oil market prices soaring and caused an immediate halt in shipping charters to the Gulf. The State-owned Kuwait Oil Tankers Co. said yesterday that it was suspending activities temporarily after attacks on its tankers. Ministers or officials in

the United States, Britain, France, and other nations voiced grave concern and urged both Gulf war combatants to end hostilities. Britain opened lines to its European Economic Community partners for immediate consultation and the United States repeated its pledge to keep the oil routes open to shipping in the Gulf. The United States has a flotilla of naval vessels regularly deployed in the Gulf and an aircraft-carrier battlegroup, led by the carrier Kitty Hawk, on station in the northern Arabian Sea. But all Gulf States are alive to the inherent risks of inviting super-Power protection and are thought likely to take military measures only as a last resort.

In Washington American officials noted that traffic was continuing to flow through the Gulf and they would not discuss what action Washington might take. Speculation on the closing of the Gulf to shipping that carries one-sixth of the nonCommunist world’s oil has focused in the past on the possible mining by Iran of the choke-point at the Strait of Hormuz. But continued attacks such as the one on the Yanbu Pride could make it too dangerous or too costly in insurance for ship owners to send their vessels through the Gulf, analysts said. If that happened, Washington would be faced with deciding whether action would be required to fulfil pledges given by President Ronald Reagan to keep the Gulf open.