Return to Hao row unresolved

Press, 4 June 1988, Page 2

Return to Hao row unresolved

By

TOM BRIDGMAN

NZPA New York

Quick action is unlikely on the potential return to Hao of the two French agents who bombed the Rainbow Warrior.

After a meeting at the United Nations in New York with the- French Foreign Minister, Mr Dumas, yesterday, the New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Marshall, was left with the assurance that France wanted the issue resolved but not much else. Mr Marshall said the agents issue was an affair of honour that should not be linked to New Zealand’s butter access to the European Community.

He had been asked his opinion of suggestions that France might try to link the return to Hao of the agents, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, to New Zealand’s threatened butter quota Negotiations on any return by the agents to Hao would have to wait until after the last round of voting in the French Parliamentary elections on June 12, Mr Marshall was told. ‘

Mr Dumas gave nb indication that France would stop nuclear testing and reiterated French opposition to the South Pacific nuclear-free zone.