Further treaty harm denied

Press, 6 December 1985, Page 4

Further treaty harm denied

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington Against statements to the contrary from Washington, the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, yesterday denied that New Zealand’s antinuclear leglisation would further harm the A.N.Z.U.S. relationship. Mr Lange’s denial would appear to ignore planes by Australia and the United States to exchange letters as a first step towards establishing a two-way defence arrangement should AJ4XUS. be scrapped. It would also appear to ignore repeated warnings from the United States that the passage of the bill will provoke a reappriasal of the alliance. The most recent of these was delivered two days ago by the Assistant Secretary of State for East

Asian and Pacific Affairs, Dr Paul Wolfowitz. Speaking in a satellite interview with journalists in Australia and Wellington he said the threatened review would go ahead and that its consequences would be “in some form or another the effective termination of our security co-operation and our security obligations to New Zealand.” Mr Lange chose instead to focus on the second part of Dr Wolfowitz’s message which was that the United States did not intend to dismantle A.N.Z.U.S. and did not intend to withdraw from it. Neither, Mr Lange said, did New Zealand. He accepted that the dispute had damaged relations with the United States and said he. regretted it but that

was the price for not having any nuclear weapons in New Zealand.

His point seemed to be that only withdrawal by the Americans could now harm New Zealand as there was no scope left for further deterioration within the alliance given that it was already inoperative. , For as long as the Americans remained signatories, they were compelled by “their constitutional process” to honour the terms of the treaty, Mr Lange said. At their most grudging, these are minimal. A.N.Z.U.S. ties the three allies to consult one another should one of them be attacked or invaded but there is no formal obligation beyond the obligation to consult.

“That is what we have

had for 34 years and that is what we have got now," Mr Lange said. He acknowledged that if the United States was to bail out of its remaining responsibilities to New Zealand it might not fulfil even this requirement, but indicated that this was unlikely if for no other reason than American self-interest. Dr Wolfowitz had hinted that while A.N.Z.U.S. would be retained, New Zealand might be expelled from it. Mr Lange said, however, that there was no power within the agreement for this to happen. If the United States and Australia wanted to drop New Zealand it would have to quit A.N.Z.U.S. and develop a bilateral pact — an option it is of course, considering right now.