N.Z. considering U.S. request on Libya

Press, 10 January 1986, Page 4

N.Z. considering U.S. request on Libya

PA Wellington The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, says he will give “careful consideration” to a United States request for backing in an international response to alleged Libyan support of terrorism. Consultations with other countries would be necessary, Mr Lange said yesterday. He had received a letter from the United States President, Mr Reagan, expressing hope that New Zealand would join in a broadbased international response. Mr Reagan has ordered all United States citizens and companies to stop doing

business with Libya and ordered home the 1500 Americans in Libya. He pledged that unspecified “further steps” would be taken if the Libyan leader, Colonel Gadaffi, did not end his “longstanding involvement in terrorism.”

As well, Mr Reagan cited "irrefutable evidence” that Colonel Gadaffi was implicated in the massacres at Rome and Vienna airports. Mr Lange said New Zealand had been a strong advocate in the United Nations and elsewhere of effective measures for the apprehension and punishment of terrorists, and shared the United States

concern at the growing incidence of terrorism in all forms.

The indiscriminate killing of innocent victims at Rome and Vienna was a deplorable act that had only set back the cause of the Palestinians, Mr Lange said. The exact number of New Zealanders in Libya was uncertain but it was probably no more than a dozen. No New Zealand post was accredited to Libya and New Zealand consular interests were represented by the Swiss Embassy there, he said. At present there was no reason to suppose New Zealanders living in Libya were at any risk.