- At their meeting in Naples on 17th and 18th May 1980, the Foreign Ministers of the Nine member states of the European Community reconsidered, in accordance with their declaration of 22nd April, the situation resulting from the detention of the American hostages in Iran, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law.
- The Ministers examined the information emanating from Iran. While noting that there were a number of developments which could be important for the release of the hostages, in particular the completion of the second round of parliamentary elections and the forthcoming convening of the Majlis, they were obliged to recognise that no decisive progress leading to the release of the hostages had been made since 22nd April last.
- Consequently, they decided immediately to apply the measures provided For in the Security Council draft resolution of 10th January 1980, according to jointly agreed conditions and procedures. They agreed, in particular, that all contracts concluded after 4th November 1979 will be affected by these measures. They will continue to consult closely pursuant to Art. 224 of the Treaty of Rome.
- The sole purpose of these measures is to hasten the release of the hostages. At the same time, the Ministers reaffirmed their intention to respect the independence of Iran and the right of the Iranian people to determine their own future.
- The Ministers expressed great satisfaction at the decision of the UN Secretary-General to entrust to Mr. Adib Daoudi, member of the UN Commission of Inquiry, the task of entering into contact with the Iranian Government in order to enable the Commission to resume its work and to secure the resolution of the crisis. They fully support the Secretary-General and will remain in constant touch with him in order to establish whether the progress of the UN mission is such as to enable them rapidly to suspend the measures taken in respect of Iran.
§ 3.5 p.m.
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, the House will be grateful to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary for coming to the House to make that Statement. The House will equally share with him the deep regret that no decisive progress leading to the release of the hostages was reported at the meetings over the weekend, but we note with cautious satisfaction what the noble Lord said about there being some grounds for encouragement, and if the Foreign Secretary feels able to expand a little on that phrase, I am sure that we should all be very grateful.
With regard to the timing of sanctions, the Statement said that the meeting:
decided to proceed without delay with economic sanctions set out in the Security Council draft resolution of 10th January ".May I pointedly put to him the following question: When in fact will the sanctions take effect? When will they start? I am not pressing the noble Lord to see that they start precipitately. I think that I explained our attitude to sanctions sufficiently clearly, and I hope responsibly, in our debate last week. We should like to know whether the phrase "without delay" still means that there will be adequate time for every possible diplomatic approach and pressure to be made to Tehran in order to obviate the use of sanctions, if at all possible, and certainly 554 very firmly to obviate the possibility of even sterner measures.Is the Foreign Secretary— in whom we have very great confidence in regard to this matter, and other very delicate matters— convinced that there will be sufficient time for him and others to make every use of, for instance, the latest initiative in Tehran by Dr. Waldheim, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, that is in cause now?
With regard to the question of coordinating action, it is not very clear from the Statement whether this is coordination among the Nine, or among the Nine plus Japan, Australia, New Zealand and one or two other countries; or is it co-ordination among a wider range of countries?— the wider, the better, of course. The question that follows from that is: Will there be proper machinery for co-ordination? The phrase used in the Statement is:
to act simultaneously with our partners on the basis of legal instruments "—nationally conceived, I imagine—
co-ordinated to achieve parallel effect ".If possible we should like to be assured that there will be proper machinery for central co-ordination of the application of whatever sanctions are found to be necessary. In this way we shall perhaps learn from the admitted inadequacy of the machinery of monitoring and of application during the Rhodesian sanctions. If the sanctions prove to be necessary, we must not move towards them nationally with a loose kind of consultation deemed to achieve co-ordination. There should be proper machinery for this purpose.As to the question of existing contracts, it seems that the action is to be rather more retrospective than was our impression when we debated the Bill, but I have only now heard the Statement and looked at it, and I should like to study that aspect of it more closely, as no doubt will my right honourable friends in another place. Suffice it to say— and I know that in every part of the House there is sympathy for this view— that whatever is done will, we are sure, take into account the undoubted and substantial anxieties of employers and trade unions in various industries and firms in different parts of the country. If there is a constructive delay before the application of sanctions, taken up by 555 diplomatic and other moves, then the Foreign Secretary will be assured of the united support of this House and of another place.
§ Lord BANKSMy Lords, I, too, wish to join in thanking the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary for the Statement that he has made this afternoon. We on these Benches have all along condemned as strongly as we could the holding of the hostages. We supported the Iran (Temporary Powers) Bill last week, though we had reservations about the effectiveness of sanctions, but we give a very high priority to the need for Western unity at the present time.
We recognise that the proposals announced in the Statement are a modest move towards full economic sanctions. I think I am right in saying that they fall considerably short of what would have been required by the vetoed United Nations resolution. They are limited of course because they affect only the contracts agreed after 4th November 1979, necessitating, as the Statement makes clear, the use of the 1939 Act, and not the Act which we passed last week; though ot course that will be used as well.
I should like to conclude by asking three questions. Is it correct that trade between the Community and Iran has been running at a rate of about £ 500 million per month? Have the Government any estimate of what proportion of that trade is likely to be affected by these sanctions? Finally, do the Government expect any difficulty in distinguishing between a new contract and the renewal of an existing contract?
§ 3.8 p.m.
§ Lord CARRINGTONMy Lords, first, I ought to apologise to your Lordships for not having been present in the House during the passage of the legislation last week. During the last eight days I have spent only three hours in this country, and it was not possible for those three hours to be at the same time as when the legislation was being dealt with. I must apologise; but I have an idea of what went on.
The noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, asked me what were the good signs. I believe that they are very mildly 556 encouraging; I would not put it any higher than that. We have been disappointed over mildlyencouraging signs soofteninthe past that I should not care to go into this aspect in any greater detail. However, we should at any rate be grateful to the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the proposals that he has made, which meant starting again on the lines that he tried previously. I am afraid that the signs were not sufficiently encouraging to enable the nine Foreign Ministers truthfully to say that there had been decisive progress towards the release of the hostages, and consequently it was decided that the sanctions should come on forthwith. Depending upon the drafting of the Orders-in-Council, we expect that this will occur probably some time this week. Of course there will be an opportunity for debate, as I explained to your Lordships in the original Statement.
The reason why the nine Foreign Ministers chose the date of 4th November 1979 is, I think, obvious to your Lordships. It was a logical and presentationally sensible date. It was the date upon which the hostages were taken in Tehran, and it seemed that if we were going to take action of this kind against the Iranian Government the date on which the hostages were taken was a suitable date to choose. But, of course, because the legislation which your Lordships passed last week is not in any sense retrospective, it will be necessary to use the 1939 legislation for those contracts between 4th November 1979 and today— and those, of course, are equally subject to the procedure that I outlined in the Statement that I made to your Lordships. We intend to set up a co-ordinating machinery among the Nine which, I hope, will bring about what the noble Lord wants to happen; and we are co-ordinating with the other countries. I think your Lordships will have seen that the Japanese have already come out and followed suit with proposals which are much the same as the Nine have proposed.
With regard to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Banks, I probably ought to have the figures with me, but I am afraid I have not got them, or the breakdown of them, and I could not give them without notice; but I will certainly get them and write to the noble Lord. I think that we shall have to look more closely at the problems which arise between 557 new and existing and renewed contracts. As your Lordships will realise, this decision, although we had done a lot of work on it, was taken only yesterday morning, and so far there has not been any time to look into it in any great detail. But certainly work will have to be done in that respect.
§ Lord SHINWELLMy Lords, while applauding the efforts of the Foreign Secretary in this connection, may I ask whether he really believes that in view of the reluctance of some of the Government representatives at the conference, and their attitude, the sanctions are likely to prove effective? Further, was there any discussion, whether public or private, on the subject of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan; and can he say what was the reason for the hurried departure of President Giscard d'Estaing to meet Mr. Brezhnev? Was it for the purpose of asking not only his consent on the subject of sanctions against Iran but also about their attitude on Afghanistan?
§ Lord CARRINGTONMy Lords, I think that the Nine countries represented at the meeting in Naples yesterday, at which I was present, are all intending to do and to carry out the policies which were decided yesterday, and I have no doubt whatever about that. As to whether they are successful, time alone will tell; but I think there are two important factors which have to be borne in mind— and I have said this to the noble Lord before. One is that we are part of an alliance, and when our friends are in trouble and they ask us to do something, and we are concerned about the future of that alliance, we do not disregard our friends when they are in trouble. The second thing is that there is no doubt whatever about it that the very fact that the nine leading European countries have decided to take this action will be noted in Iran as evidence of the disapproval by the Nine of the action which the Iranian Government has taken and continues to take.
With regard to the other question which the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, asked me, this, as the noble Lord opposite knows, was one of those private, unstructured meetings which are not supposed to take place with anybody's knowledge. On this occasion it took place with everybody's knowledge because we had to make a 558 decision about Iran. But I do not think that an informal meeting of this kind ought to be the occasion when I let your Lordships know exactly what happened during the meeting. I think it was an informal meeting, and not a council meeting; but exceptionally it made the decision about Iran. With regard to the motives behind President Giscard d'Estaing's visit to Warsaw, I think perhaps the noble Lord might address himself to the source.
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, may I, with the indulgence of the House, intervene briefly once more and assure the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary that his absence was more than agreeable to the House— I hope he will not take that in the wrong way— in that we knew that he was engaged in very constructive work in other places. We only wish that the meetings he had in Vienna might conceivably be duplicated in, let us say, other capitals of Europe, such as Warsaw. We would feel a little more confidence about the future if that were so. But may I support my noble friend Lord Shinwell in what he has said, admittedly about an aspect of the discussions which did not figure in today's Statement; namely, our great concern as to how things are going in the exchanges about Afghanistan. No doubt the Foreign Secretary, as he always does, will seek the earliest possible opportunity of causing a Statement on the progress of discussions about Afghanistan, and the situation arising from the position there, to be made in the other place, and will himself present it in this place.
§ Lord CARRINGTONMy Lords, of course I will do that. I think that there is at the moment, in a sense, a disturbing lack of progress over Afghanistan. But last week there was an opportunity, particularly in Vienna, for an exchange of views which I think was very useful. I had an opportunity to meet Mr. Muskie and the French and German Foreign Ministers together, and we had a discussion; and I also had an opportunity to meet Mr. Gromyko. Nothing else, as far as I was concerned, but Afghanistan was discussed with Mr. Gromyko. I cannot say that I was enormously encouraged, in the sense that there is obviously still a very wide difference between the positions of the Soviet Union and Britain; but I still think that if there is 559 any chance of success it is worth talking, and I hope that we shall go on doing so. But there should be no misunderstanding on the part of the Soviet Union that because we are prepared to go on talking it means that we have retreated in any degree from what we said at the beginning.