Talks on Waite’s fate

Press, 3 February 1987, Page 6

Talks on Waite’s fate

NZPA-AP Beirut Intensive negotiations involving Syria, Iran, and Lebanese militia leaders have started to determine the fate of the missing hostage negotiator, Terry Waite, and ensure his safety. A senior militia official said: “These hush-hush talks are in high gear.” “The parties concerned are burning up the wires trying to ensure Mr Waite’s safety. Plenty of Syrian and Iranian emissaries are shuttling back and forth.”

Mr Waite, personal emissary of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, flew to Beirut on January 12 on his fifth trip to Lebanon to seek freedom for foreign hostages. The envoy has not been seen publicly since he left

the Riviera Hotel in west Beirut on January 20, presumably to negotiate with Islamic Jihad, a proIranian Shi’ite faction that holds two Americans, Terry Anderson and Thomas Sutherland. Both men were abducted in 1985.

Various reports have said that Mr Waite may have been taken prisoner.

"The lack of direct word from Mr Waite since his disappearance two weeks ago has alarmed all sides concerned, and every effort is being made to find out about him,” said the militia source.

Iran is believed to wield influence with some of the groups in Lebanon that have claimed responsibility for abducting Western hostages. Syria is the main power-broker in Lebanon and has about 25,000 soldiers in the

north and east under a 1976 Arab League peacekeeping mandate. The Druse chieftan, Walid Jumblatt, whose militia was in charge of Mr Waite’s security, during the week-end offered himself as a hostage to replace Mr Waite if reports of his abduction were true.

The Church said Mr Waite had left strict instructions forbidding any rescue mission, ransom payment, or substitution of hostages if he were kidnapped. A Church statement about Mr Waite’s message was issued after London’s “Sunday Express” newspaper reported that "Beirut terrorists” were demanding a ransom of SUS 4 million ($7.44 million) for his release.

A.B.C. television reported that its sources said that Mr Waite would

be freed if the United States guaranteed it would not intervene militarily in Lebanon or against Iran in its six-year-old war against Iraq.

Israel’s Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Rabin, yesterday rejected a demand by Muslim militiamen that Israel should free hundreds of jailed Palestinian guerrillas for American hostages in Lebanon.

The Islamic Jihad (Holy War) for the Liberation of Palestine has threatened to execute the hostages within a week unless Israel releases the prisoners.

Mr Rabin said the United States had not approached Israel over the demand, but it was inconceivable that Israel would agree to exchange convicted guerrillas for Western hostages. “It is inconceivable ...

(that we would) arrest, put on trial and imprison thousands of guerrillas to serve as an international bank reserve that one draws on (to free) hostages,” said Mr Rabin. The Muslim guerrilla group has claimed responsibility for abducting last week four professors from Beirut’s American University — three Americans and an Indian national.

In 1985, Israel released more than 700 suspected Shi’ite Muslim guerrillas in apparent capitulation to the demands of Shi’ite gunmen who hijacked an American Trans World Airlines plane to Beirut. Israel insisted, however, that freedom for the aircraft hostages had not been won through its agreement to release the Shi’ites detained during its occupation of south Lebanon.