Hostages-for-prisoners offer rejected by U.S.

Press, 22 August 1987, Page 10

Hostages-for-prisoners offer rejected by U.S.

NZPA-Reuter Washington

The United States, in a sharp rebuff to Iran, has reaffirmed its refusal to make deals for the release of foreign hostages held in Lebanon, but United States officials said yesterday that Washington hoped its decision to send Ambassador William Eagleton back to his post in Syria would encourage Damascus to press Iran to free them. Iran’s latest offer of a prisoners for hostages swap was made by the Speaker of Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani, in an interview yesterday on United States television.

“I am not suggesting that I have absolute power to do that. I only promise to make my best efforts. I think I can be of some help,” he said.

The offer brought a categorical rejection from an American Gover ::?ant deeply embarra-! d over secret arms sales to Iran which be-

came President Reagan’s worst foreign-policy scandal.

“Our response to Mr Rafsanjani is no deals, no release of the military equipment, no pressure on Israel to release prisoners, no pressure on Kuwait to release prisoners,” a State Department spokeswoman, Phyllis Oakley, told reporters. Mr Rafsanjani had suggested swapping Muslim Shi’ite prisoners held in Israel and Kuwait for hostages in Lebanon and said delivery of United States arms bought by the Shah of Iran before his fall in 1979 would improve relations. United States hopes that more of the 27 foreign hostages might be freed rose after the arrival of an American journalist, Charles Glass, at a Beirut hotel after two months of captivity in the hands of the proIranian Hizbollah group. The United States publicly thanked Syria for its pressure on Iran to free Glass, the only

foreigner taken hostage in Beirut since Syrian troops moved into the largely Muslim western sector of the city in February. United States officials, who asked not to be identified, declined to judge whether that pressure persuaded Hizbollah to allow Glass’s escape or whether the reporter had won freedom unaided.

They said Syria, the only Arab country with good relations with increasingly isolated Teheran, was now in a good position to press Iran to help free hostages.

The officials said the decision to send Mr Eagleton back to Damascus had been taken before Mr Glass walked to freedom,

Iran and Syria compete for influence in Lebanon and the officials said Washington believed Teheran now needed to mend damage to relations that competition had caused.