Release All Hostages, U.N. Council Urges

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning “all acts of hostage-taking and abduction” and demanding the immediate release of all hostages worldwide.

The action follows a somewhat similar resolution adopted by the General Assembly on Dec. 9.

U.S. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters hailed the vote as a “fitting climax to this important 40th anniversary year of the United Nations” and he singled out the Soviet Union in thanking the council’s 15 members for their support.

The meeting of the top U.N. political body took less than three minutes, but Walters acknowledged that “there was a lot of work before it.”

He said he and his staff had several meetings with Soviet Ambassador Oleg A. Troyanovsky and his aides on the subject.

The United States was joined by Britain, France, Australia, Denmark, Egypt, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago in sponsoring the resolution that “condemns unequivocally all acts of hostage-taking and abduction for any reason.”

It “calls for the immediate safe release of all hostages and abducted persons wherever and by whomever they are being held.”

U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar called the council action “a very constructive message to the world community.”

The resolution requires states in whose territory victims of kidnapings are held to “take urgently all appropriate measures to secure their safe release and to prevent the commission of hostage-taking and abduction in the future.”

It “urges the further development of international cooperation . . . among states in devising and adopting effective measures, which are in accordance with the rules of international law to facilitate the prevention, prosecution and punishment of all acts of hostage-taking and abduction as manifestations of international terrorism.”