Rise in Rushdie tension denied

Press, 4 March 1989, Page 1

Rise in Rushdie tension denied

PA Wellington The Government yesterday continued to deny that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Marshall, had raised the tempo of New Zealand’s response to the Rushdie affair. In Bahrain Mr Marshall accused Iran of virtual State terrorism in its call for the execution of the author, Salman Rushdie, who Iran claims blasphemed Islam in his novel, "The Satanic Verses.” The death threat was “not something one would expect of any religion or race in the twentieth century — it is behaviour from another age,” Mr Marshall said.

Some European countries have cut diplomatic links with Teheran over the Rushdie affair but New Zealand said it would neither recall its Ambassador, nor join any trade sanction against Iran. But Mr Marshall yesterday denied that Wellington was reluctant to sever links with Iran for fear of losing lamb exports. “It’s not true to say that we are

still there for trade considerations,” he said. The Minister of External Relations and Trade, Mr Moore, who is due to lead a trade mission to Iran in April, played down Mr Marshall’s comments, saying they were consistent with Government statements on the matter.

He said he was not surprised by Mr Marshall’s remarks; they would not make New Zealand’s trade relationship with Iran more difficult.

Mr Marshall’s office said that in a radio interview last week Mr Moore said, “Our position is clear. We’re not going to take our Ambassador out.

“But of course we think it is obscene and wrong that a leader of any country can espouse a view that a citizen of another land should be assassinated — or to try to • censor what other countries read.”

The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, who has had to back-peddle over New- Zealand’s response to the affair, yesterday also took Mr

Moore’s line that Mr Marshall has not gone beyond the Government’s position. “Mr Marshall is only articulating a position that has already been spelt out by the Government,” Mr Lange’s office said. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bolger, accused the Government of “muddling its way towards a serious diplomatic confrontation with Iran.” He said that after the Ayatollah Khomeiny called for Rushdie’s assassination Mr Lange “tried to shrug the whole thing off” and when that failed, the Government attempted to retrieve its position. “Mr Marshall is taking a far stroriger stance' than anything we’ve heard to date. I can only assume he has learned something in the Middle East that has called him to escalate the diplomatic rhetoric,” he said. “It is now a matter of urgency that the Prime Minister recall New Zealand’s Ambassador to Iran for consultation.”