French hostage deal upsets U.S. and Britain

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 10

French hostage deal upsets U.S. and Britain

NZPA-Reuter Paris The United States and Britain have voiced fears that France has compromised hopes of freeing more hostages from Lebanon by agreeing to deal with Iran, which they suspect of controlling the hostages’ fate. The French Prime Minister, Jacques Chirac, whose Government, took the credit for securing the release of two French newsmen last week and ending a five-month-’em-bassies war” between Paris and" Teheran, changed his tone on Tuesday night - Normal relations between France and Iran “cannot be complete until the last hostage held In Lebanon by terrorist groups, on which Iran can exert its influence, is freed,” Mr Chirac told an official banquet Paris-based diplomats said Mr Chirac appeared to wish to deflect criticism that he was becoming too closely involved with Iran, especially as France has supported Iraq in the seven-year Gulf war. They said he also hoped to persuade Iran to put pressure on the proTeheran kidnappers of three other Frenchmen in Lebanon and gain their release. More than 20 foreign hostages are held in Lebanon, eight of them Americans. The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, said she would speak out against deals with terrorists when she attends a European Community summit in Copenhagen this week-end. A United States State Department spokesman, Charles Redman, told reporters that Iran’s role in controlling the fate of hostages had been confirmed by France's action and that Teheran was prepared to “bargain with the lives of innocent people in exchange for money.” ' “We don’t believe such behaviour should be rewarded," he added.