France keen to limit Chad fighting

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 8

France keen to limit Chad fighting

NZPA-Reuter Paris France, having proved its readiness to strike at Libyan targets in Chad, is hoping to calm its standoff with the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi. Officials said they would continue to react to stem any advances by Libyan forces in Chad, but reiterated that they were not seeking to step up the conflict. The Defence Minister, Andre Giraud, hinted that France, which on Wednesday knocked out the main radar at Libya’s Ouadi

Doum airbase, would not retaliate for Libya’s latest incursion over the sixteenth parallel “red line” that divides the country in two. Mr Giraud said the raid, in which a lone Libyan fighter dropped its bomb load on empty desert, could have been a mistake and did not constitute a riposte to the French strike. '' Diplomats in Paris said the French stance was unlikely to satisfy the Chad President, Hissene Habre, who has been pressing France to help his forces reconquer the

north from the Libyan Army. France was keen to avoid a new flare-up with Colonel Gadaffi’s forces in order to stop the conflict developing into an international issue, according to the diplomats. Meanwhile, Chad radio reported “intensive” Libyan air raids yesterday against pro-Govemment forces holding the oasis town of Zouar, in the Tibesti mountains of the far north of Chad. No independent confirmation of the claim was available.