T News Digest NdSaskan
d Monday, October 31,1988
First U.S. ship to leave Persian Gulf this week
MANAMA, Bahrain — The
United States plans to reduce its fleet
of warships in the Persian Gulf this
week with the withdrawal of a frigate,
U.S. sources said Sunday. The move
reflects confidence in the Iran-Iraq
truce.
The sources said the vessel will
leave barring a last-minute change in
plans. It would be the first American
warship to be removed from the gulf
since Iran and Iraq agreed to an Aug.
20 cease-fire in their eight-year war.
The 3,600-ton missile frigate, the
USS Rodney M. Davis, will be de
tached from gulf duly on Tuesday,
said the sources on condition of ano
nymity. It will sail for its home port in
Yokosuka, Japan, they said.
In Washington, Pentagon spokes
man Maj. Mike Stepp refused com
ment, citing a Defense Department
policy of not discussing ship move
ments or locations for security rea
sons.
The ship’s departure would trim
overall American naval strength in
the region from 26 to 25 vessels. The
Pentagon says the U.S. gulf fore; will
gradually be scaled back to a pre-war
level of about five ships if the cease
fire stays in effect
U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf
and nearby waters have frequently
departed, but they were replaced by
other vessels in a rotation schedule.
The fleet dropped from 27 to 26
ships when the USS Vincennes
cruiser departed from the Arabian Sea
on Sept. 5. The Vincennes was to have
been replaced by the cruiser USS
Mobile Bay but the orders sending it
to the gulf area were canceled a day
before it was to have left
Since the cease-fire, no flareups of
violence have been reported in the
waterway. More than 500 commer
cial ships were damaged there by air
and gunboat attacks in the four-year
tanker war that spun off the main Iraq
Iran ground conflict.
U.S. military officials have al
ready ended 17 months of escorting
convoys of U.S.-flagged Kuwaiti oil
tankers and curtailed regional air
surveillance.
The U.S. Navy squadron inside the
gulf itself, normally about 16 ships,
includes six minesweepers, an am
phibious landing ship, and the flag
snip usa La oane. 1 nere are also two
missile cruisers, one missile de
stroyer, and four frigates besides the
Rodney M. Davis.
The Rodney M. Davis arrived in
the gulf Sept. 9 and was scheduled to
return in early January to Japan,
where it is assigned to the U.S. Sev
enth Fleet.
The missile cruiser USS Reeves
and missile frigate USS Vandegrift
are also scheduled to leave in the next
week but will be replaced, the sources
said.
Gulf talks resume, priority on disengagement
GENEVA — U.N.-mediated
peace talks between Iran and Iraq
resume Monday in an effort to con
solidate the precarious truce and dis
engage troops in the 8-year-old Per
sian Gulf war.
U.N. Secretary-General Javier
Perez de Cuellar flew to Geneva
Sunday and said he hoped for substan
tive progress on an exchange of pris
oners held by the two countries.
Each country’ released 25 prison
ers of war Sunday but still hold thou
sands of others.
Iraq freed 25 disabled Iranian pris
r—1....
oners and they were flown to Tehran,
the capital of Iran, aboard a plane
chartered by the International Red
Cross. Iran reciprocated immediately
by releasing 25 Iraqi prisoners who
boarded the same plane for the return
flight to Baghdad, Iraq, according to
Francoise Derand, a spokesman at the
Red Cross office in Geneva.
In a brief chat with reporters after
his arrival, Perez de Cuellar said he
hoped the meetings in Geneva would
be “if possible much more useful”
than the 10-day round early this
month in New York.
Perez de Cuellar last week named
withdrawal of the forces as his first
priority in the new negotiations.
Urgency to his efforts was added
by a report warning that forces “re
main in dangerous proximity” after
eight years of fighting that has killed
or wounded an estimated 1.5 million.
The report by the U.N. Iran Iraq
Military Observer Group warned of
constant danger of renewed fighting
between the two sides, whose soldiers
are separated in some places by only
30 feet.
A cease-fire has been in effect
since Aug. 20.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali
Akbar Velayati and his Iraqi counter
part, Tariq Aziz, have said no prog
ress was made on the principal issue
stalemating the talks since they began
in Geneva Aug. 25 - the delineation of
a border between die two nations.
Iran says a 1975 treaty set the
border in the middle of the Shatl-al
Arab waterway, Iraq’s only navigable
outlet to the sea.
Iraq, which rejected the treaty in
1980, demands sovereignty over the
entire waterway.
Other disputed stretches line the
more than 800-mile-long frontier,
according to U.N. sources. They say
the discrepancies have impeded an
exact definition of the “internation
ally recognized boundaries'* to which
the two countries are to withdraw
under the U.N.-mediated cease-fire.
The resolution calls for a perma
nent cease-fire, withdrawal of troops
to the pre-war border and the rcpatria
tion of POWs.
Vice President George Bush waits in the wings before a campaign speech in Omaha Civic
Auditorium’s Exhibit Hall Oct. 28. Polls showed Sunday that Bush’s lead in the presidential
race had dropped below the double-digit mark.
Foils don t worry tsusn
PHILADELPHIA — Vice
President George Bush on Sunday
shrugged off recent polls that
showed a nanowing lead over
Democratic rival Michael
Dukakis, and said he would cam
paign harder than ever in the final
week before the Nov. 8 election.
Asked why the polls showed his
once double-digit advantage over
Dukakis appeared to be eroding,
Bush replied, “I don’t think they
are, and I’m not going to say any
more about it.”
The GOP nominee spoke
briefly to reporters outside the
residence of Roman Catholic Car
dinal John Krol, where he attended
a private Mass with his wife, Bar
bara, and grandson George P.
Bush.
Bush’s chief of staff, Craig
Fuller, said the campaign had
expected all along to see a tighten
ing in the numbers and was not
alarmed by the latest apparent
shift toward Dukakis.
“I think it’s to be expected as
you get to the final days of the
campaign that you’re going to sec
some tightening in this race, but
that’s going to cause us to work
harder. We’ll not allow ourselves
to lose the edge we’ve had as a
campaign team,” Fuller said.
On a light campaign day in the
Philadelphia area, Bush told a
crowd of supporters outside sub
urban Montgomery County Bush
Quaylc headquarters that he
would continue to campaign at
full steam.
U.S. to relax restrictions against North Korea
WASHINGTON — The Reagan
administration is expected to relax
some diplomatic and trade restric
tions against North Korea early this
week as part of a coordinated strategy
with South Korea to ease tensions on
the peninsula, according to U.S. offi
cials.
Although modest, the moves are
believed to be the most extensive the
United States has adopted toward
North Korea since the Korean armi
stice was signed 35 years ago. An
official announcement could come as
early as Monday.
The officials said the U.S. trade
embargo against North Korea, one of
the tightest in the world, will be re
laxed, possibly to remove the ban on
the sale of U.S. medical supplies to
North Korea. There also may be an
easing on currency exchanges with
North Koreans.
In addition, a prohibition on U.S.
diplomats having substantive diplo
matic contacts with North Korean
representatives may be lifted, said the
officials, who asked not to be identi
fied. North Korea is one of a handful
of countries with which the United
States does not have diplomatic rela
tions.
The United States allowed limited
contact with North Korean diplomats
in early 1987 but then restored the ban
after U.S. officials said there was
convincing evidence that North Ko
rea sponsored a terrorist incident last
November in which a South Korean
passenger plane was blown up over
Southeast Asia. The incident claimed
US lives.
South Korean President Roh Tae
Woo has been encouraging the ad
ministration to demonstrate more
flexibility toward the north and came
here 10 days ago with that message.
Since then, the State Department
has been working with the Treasury
Department and other agencies on the
paperwork required to carry out the
changes contemplated.
Historically, South Korea has,
with U.S. help, tried to isolate North
Korea but Ron has altered that policy
by calling for trade between the two
countries and for summit meeting
with President Kim Il-Sung.
As U.S. officials see it, Roh’s
moves reflect increased South Ko
rean self-confidence based on the
country’s growing economic strength
and the success of the summer Olym
pic games held in September in Seoul.
North Korea made no attempt to
disrupt the games, which Roh took as
an encouraging sign. In addition, he
has been under strong domestic pres
sure lo make an effort that could lead
lo the eventual peaceful reunification
of the peninsula.
The officials said recent develop
ments have left North Korea more
isolated than before. Its principal
backers, China and the Soviet Union,
ignored North Korea’s appeals for a
boycott of the Olympics.
Only Cuba and a handful of other
leftist countries supported the North
Korean call.
The officials believe that the
combination of events may have left
the North Koreans more amenable
than before to increased peaceful
contact with the south.
Nebraskan
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Gorbachev says he’s tired of slogans
MOSCOW — President Mikhail
S. Gorbachev says he’s had enough of
meetings and sloganeering and that
it’s lime for Soviet society to get
down to work.
Speaking to a gathering of the
Young Communist League, or Kom
somol, Goibachev expressed his
impatience with the slow pace of re
form under his policy of perestroika,
or restructuring.
“Society has been engaging in
meetings for too long,” he said Satur
day. “Meetings, slogans, and criti
cisms should be followed by acts
which would set the policy and the
entire potential of society into mo
tion.”
Gorbachev’s remarks were dis
tributed late Saturday by the official
news agency Tass. They appeared to
signal the Soviet leader's impatience
to get the country moving rather than
any disenchantment with the more
open atmosphere he has fostered.
His policy of glasnost, or greater
openness, has encouraged more open
public debate and a wide-ranging rc
evalualion of Soviet history and fu
ture prospects.
At the same time, his efforts to
reform the country’s economy have
not yet improved living standards for
Soviet citizens, Gorbachev’s stated
goal. Gorbachev stressed to the
young Communists, who were mark
ing the 70th anniversary of their or
ganization, that perestroika will work
only if they work.
“What should be done for the proc
esses of perestroika to gather momen
tum and unfold on a larger scale? It is
essential to do concrete work in each
work collective, in each town and
village, relying on glasnost and de
mocracy, on everything which has
democratized economic life, and on
what is taking place in the political
process of the country,” he said.
Gorbachev boosted his position in
the Soviet leadership a month ago by
assuming the presidency when An
drei A. Gromyko retired and by
streamlining the Communist Party
bureaucracy with his supporters in
key positions.