Royal visit starts on controversial note

Press, 24 April 1987, Page 38

Royal visit starts on controversial note

NZPA-Reuter Madrid Prince Charles said at the start of a visit to Spain that Irish Republican guerrillas posed more of a threat to him than Basque separatists, according to the Spanish Europa Press news agency.

The agency said that Prince Charles made the remark at a press reception shortly after arriving In Madrid with his wife, Princess Diana.

The Prince’s press secretary, Victor Chapman, emphasised before the reception that any

comments by the Royal couple were strictly off the fecord — a rule which governs all such events during Royal tours overseas.

But the agency issued a report on the 45-mlnute cocktail party which included indirect quotes from both the Prince and Princess of Wales.

“On the subject of terrorism, he (the Prince) said that he did not think E.T.A. regarded him as a target for a terrorist attack and that, in that respect, he was more

afraid of the 1.R.A., although he felt that when a bullet had a person’s name on, he cannot escape it” the Europa Press report said. The E.T.A. (Basque Homeland and Freedom) separatist guerrillas have been fighting for 18 years for an independent Basque state in northern Spain while the Irish Republican Army (1.R.A.) is pursuing a violent campaign for Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and become part of a united Ireland. Mr Chapman could not be reached for comment on the Europa Press report and a British Embassy spokesman said only that the rules covering the reception had been clearly explained in English and Spanish. The incident injected a controversial note into a visit which was supposed to bury an earlier controversy, when the couple upset Spaniards by beginning their honeymoon cruise in 1981 from the British colony of Gibraltar which Spain claims is theirs..