Join U.S. to Fight Terrorists, Shultz Urges Europeans : Meese Pledges Campaign to Pursue Abul Abbas as International Criminal

Secretary of State George P. Shultz urged Western European nations Monday to overcome their fear of retaliation and join the United States in an international battle against terrorists such as the hijackers of the Achille Lauro, whom he called “cowardly animals . . . not guerrillas.”

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, meanwhile, said the U.S. government will pursue Palestinian faction leader Abul Abbas as it would any “international criminal,” despite the refusal of Italy and Yugoslavia to detain the man Washington considers to be the mastermind of the hijacking.

In Syria, authorities reported that the body of an elderly man has washed ashore near the coastal port of Tartus, the State Department said Monday night. Officials are trying to determine whether the body is that of Leon Klinghoffer, 69, the American killed during the hijacking.

Arafat Move Dropped

And at the United Nations, the United States scored a diplomatic victory when a group of nonaligned nations agreed not to press for a vote on a draft resolution that would have invited Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat to address the U.N. General Assembly next week. President Reagan had threatened to cancel his own plans to address the session if Arafat were on the list of speakers.

“Terrorism is the war we’re fighting right now,” Shultz told members of Western parliaments attending the annual meeting in San Francisco of the North Atlantic Assembly, NATO’s parliamentary advisory group.

“We must take action,” Shultz said. “If free peoples do not move against the terrorists, no one will stop them. We must have the courage to act, without violence if possible but recognizing that sometimes violence cannot be avoided. If our dedication to that principle paralyzes us, all our principles will be in jeopardy.

“They (terrorists) seek to instill fear--the fear that anyone who captures and brings to justice the terrorists becomes a target to the terrorists,” Shultz said. “We must stand for the rule of law, but we must not let fear turn it into a key to the jailhouse door.”

‘Have to Prosecute’

To a burst of applause, he said, “When we get our hands on terrorists, we have to prosecute them. We shouldn’t hesitate about that.” He added that he is convinced that Italy will bring the four hijackers “to proper justice.”

However, Shultz warned against “provocative matters” that might appease Western public opinion but would have no real effect on terrorism. “There is no point in doing things that only inflame people and lead to terrorist actions on the part of various groupings,” Shultz said. He did not elaborate.

Meese, in a CBS-TV interview, said the United States will “pursue Mr. Abbas as we would any other fugitive. . . . There is no safe haven, as far as we’re concerned.”

Abbas Arrest Warrant

Terry Eastland, the Justice Department director of communications, said later that the U.S. government will seek the arrest and extradition of Abbas from every country he visits, using an arrest warrant issued Saturday charging him with hostage-taking, piracy and conspiracy.

Eastland and other officials here would not comment on reports that the Reagan Administration has transcripts of radio transmissions closely linking Abbas to the hijacking of the Achille Lauro.

The New York Times reported Monday that the transcripts are of radio conversations between the hijackers and Abbas, who was said to have remained close to the ship while directing the hijacking. The transcripts were provided to the Italian government, according to the report, before the Italians decided to let Abbas leave the country.

The official Yugoslav press agency reported Monday that Abbas has left Yugoslavia. But Eastland said that, according to the best information available to the U.S. government, the 38-year-old leader of the Palestine Liberation Front is still in Yugoslavia, though exactly where is not known.

Reagan declined to discuss the issue when he returned to the White House on Monday afternoon after a long Columbus Day weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md. National security adviser Robert C. McFarlane met the President’s helicopter, reportedly handing him an analysis of the hijacking and the continuing international debate. Reagan brushed aside reporters’ questions by saying, “It’s a holiday.”

McFarlane also declined to discuss the subject of his report.

FBI Director William H. Webster, in an ABC-TV interview, said that the FBI has sent two teams of investigators to Italy to assist the Italian government in its investigation of the hijacking.

“It remains to be seen whether or not they (the Italian authorities) will allow us to do forensic work on the ship, to interview the subjects and the passengers and crew in Italy,” Webster said.

U.N. Announcement

The decision by India, Iraq, Kuwait, Nigeria, Senegal and Yemen to drop their plans to invite Arafat to address the United Nations during a two-week session commemorating the organization’s 40th anniversary was announced at the start of the session Monday.

The six sponsors said their decision leaves unchanged a 1974 resolution that gives the PLO official status as a U.N. observer, which does not include the right to speak.

In the aftermath of the hijacking, the United States exerted strong pressure to deny the U.N. podium to Arafat.

Abbas, at Arafat’s direction, supervised negotiations for the surrender of the four hijackers. Italy praised Arafat’s role, but the United States, in charging Abbas with organizing the operation that resulted in the hijacking, implicitly accused Arafat of being involved in the crime.

Norman Kempster reported from Washington and Doyle McManus from San Francisco. Times staff writers Robert L. Jackson in Washington and Don Shannon at the United Nations also contributed.