Soviets give support as Libya celebrates

Press, 2 September 1986, Page 10

Soviets give support as Libya celebrates

NZPA-Reuter Tripoli

The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi had talks yesterday with the Soviet First Vice-President, Pyotr Demichev, who later looked at damage caused to Colonel Gadaffi’s house by a United States air strike last April. In Moscow, the Soviet Union’s highest state body gave support to Libya in a message to Colonel Gadaffi, the Soviet news agency, Tass, reported. Tripoli Radio gave no details of the GadaffiDemichev talks, the first between the two countries since a Soviet military delegation went to Tripoli in early June.

Mr Demichev was in Libya for celebrations marking the seventeenth anniversary today of the 1969 revolution that overthrew Libya’s pro-Western monarchy.

Delegations from Vietnam, Hungary, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Syria, Mauritania, North Yemen and several Syrian-based

radical Palestinian groups are also attending the anniversary.

The Soviet Union is Libya’s main arms supplier but has been cautious in extending military assistance during recent confrontations with the United States.

Diplomats say Libya has received two Soviet frigates to replace vessels destroyed during a United States attack in the Gulf of Sirte in March. The Russians are also believed to have replaced several MiG fighters and Air Force cargo planes destroyed in the raid on Tripoli. Diplomats estimate Libya owes the Soviet Union SUSS billion ($10.25 billion) for arms supplies.

Colonel Gadaffi said yesterday that he would form an international army to fight the United" States if it persisted inthreatening new attacks.

In a fiery speech he called the United States President, Ronald Reagan, “mentally ill” and said the Soviet Union would

stand behind Libya in the event of a new United States attack.

A United States envoy, Vernon Walters, has started a European tour in Madrid in the first round of talks to press allies for sanctions against Libya.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Mr Walters would meet the Foreign Minister, Francisco Fernandez Ordonez, but the agenda did not include talks with the Prime Minister, Felipe Gonzalez. United States officials said Mr Walters would press for sanctions inevitably involving oil, Libya’s staple export. - Spain buys about a third of its natural gas from Libya, which also supplies about 10 per cent of its crude oil. Spanish exports to Libya are mainly olive oil.

Spain expelled 11 Libyan nationals last May in line with similar action taken by other E.E.C. countries. Libya retaliated by ordering 36 Spanish

technicians out of the country. Relations with Tripoli took a sharp turn for the worse when the Libyan consul in Madrid was expelled for allegedly arranging a meeting of a Spanish colonel with Colonel Gadaffi to seek support for far Right activities in Spain. The Libyan charge d’affairs in Madrid that same month left Spain discreetly after being linked by press reports to an anti-Zionist guerrilla group. Fernandez Ordonez last week returned from a three-day visit to Syria which the Spanish Government hailed as a breakthrough in restoring friendly ties with Damascus.

Relations with Syria had soured after Spain granted diplomatic recognition to Israel last January.

Political sources said Spain was reluctant to jeopardise good relations with Syria and other Arab countries by agreeing to sanctions against Libya.