Targets of ban not given

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 10

Targets of ban not given

NZPA-NYT Brussels The European Common Market’s 12 member nations agreed yesterday to ban all sales of arms and military equipment to countries that were implicated “clearly” in supporting terrorism.

But the 12 did not list the countries affected by their new arms embargo and they made no mention at all of Libya, which the President of the United States, Mr Ronald Reagan, has accused of being behind the recent terrorist outrages at Rome and Vienna airports. Since all main Common Market arms producers, including Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, already refuse to sell weaponry to Libya, officials conceded that yesterday’s embargo was unlikely to have much effect on that country. The Dutch Foreign Minister, Mr Hans van den Broek, who chaired the meeting, said that there was no list.

“It is up to each country to decide which countries are Involved. I assume it will be possible to reach a consensus,” Mr van den Broek said. He confirmed that most Common Market countries already embargoed arms sales to Libya.

The new British Minis-

ter of State at the Foreign Office, Mrs Lynda Chalker, said there was absolutely no doubt the text referred to Libya.

The 12 Common Market countries also declared they would do everything in their power to ensure that their nationals and companies did not seek any commercial advantage from measures in reaction to terrorist attacks and other terrorist activities—a reference to Mr Reagan’s economic sanctions against Libya. But the governments of the 12 lack the legal power to compel their companies and citizens not to take over jobs and contracts abandoned by Americans in Libya, or any other country subject to United States economic sanctions. Last week John Whitehead, the American Deputy Secretary of State, toured European capitals before the meeting, urging governments not to buy Libyan oil, to stop sales of high-techology goods, and to restrict airline flights.

Mr Whitehead said he had presented the governments with “clear and incontrovertable proof’ of Colonel Gadaffi’s role in the Rome and Vienna attacks and other acts of international terrorism.