Iraqi head renews pledge against Kharg

Press, 25 May 1984, Page 6

Iraqi head renews pledge against Kharg

NZPA-Reuter Bahrain

Iraq has pledged to wipe out facilities at Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal and step up air strikes on Gulf shipping as Syria launched a diplomatic effort aimed at protecting the flow of oil through the vital waterway.

The Iraqi President, Mr Saddam Hussein, who started the Gulf war by ordering a full-scale invasion of Iran in September, 1980, said that his country would within a few days receive new weapons capable of destroying Kharg, Teheran’s economic lifeline.

“We will not retreat from our plan to close the blockade on Kbarg Island and strike any tanker within the prohibited zone,” Mr Hussein told an Army ceremony yesterday. His remarks were the latest in a bitter exchange of threats between Bagdad and Teheran which triggered international concern about the future of navigation in the Gulf after a spate of attacks on shipping there. A Syrian Vice-President, Abdel Halim Khaddam, and the Foreign Minister, Mr Farouk Shara arrived at Teheran yesterday and delivered a message from their President, Mr Hafez

Assad, to the Iranian President. Hojatoleslam. Ali Khamenei.

The Syrian news agency. Sana, quoted informed sources as saying that the message spoke of a need to avoid expansion of the war and to calm the situation between Iran and the Gulf States. The sources had said that the meeting with Hojatoleslam Khamenei had agreed on a need to avoid expanding the scope of the war to prevent any. "imperialist intervention in the region," Sana, reported.

The visit came after the unexpected arrival in Damascus on Wednesday of the deputy commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard. Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Tuweijari. Syria, which backs Iran in the Gulf war, is the only Arab State in a position to exert pressure on Teheran's clerical leaders to avoid attacking Arab shipping in the Gulf.

Syria’s attempt at defusing tension in the region came after recent Iranian air attacks on ships belonging to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Iraq’s financial backers in the war. Iran, which has adamantly refused repeated international mediation efforts to negotiate with Iraq, has vowed to disrupt Arab

oil shipments in the Gulf if its own exports are cut as a result of Iraqi at-

tacks. Sana did not mention the ground fighting between Iran and Iraq, apparently indicating that Syria's diplo matic effort was pointed at the Gulf waters and designed to prevent a possible conflict between Iran and Arab States on the southern coast of the Gulf.

Iran and Iraq refrained from attacks against ships for the fifth successive day although there was limited ground and air combat in the southern front of the Gulf war.