Europeans Rebuff Reprisals on Libya : Kohl Sees Kadafi Hand in Berlin Disco Bombing

Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany said Friday that there “are a great many indications” that Libya was a conspirator in the terrorist bombing of a West Berlin discotheque last week, but he stood fast with other Western European governments by refusing to support President Reagan on possible reprisals against Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

Kohl told a news conference in Bonn that he was concerned about the consequences of any U.S. military reprisals against the Tripoli government.

“If you introduce this term (reprisals) into the debate,” he said, “you must know what you are beginning and how you are going to get out of it at the end. That would always be my advice, despite all the sympathy I have for the enormous bitterness in America.”

Foreign Minister Due

Kohl underscored his concern by pointing out that his foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, will go to Washington next week for talks with Reagan and Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

The West German chancellor’s comments reflected a growing apprehension in Western Europe about the U.S. crisis with Libya and a growing uneasiness about the pressure from the Reagan Administration to declare Libyan embassies as sources of terrorism and take action against them.

At the request of several countries, the government of the Netherlands is trying to organize an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of the European Communities in The Hague next Wednesday to discuss the tension between the United States and Libya.

In Bonn, Kohl, commenting on the disco bombing that killed an American soldier and a Turkish woman and injured 230, including 64 Americans, said, “There are a great many indications that the bombing of the discotheque also has a Libyan background.”

But he quickly added, “I didn’t say only, I said also. “

Warns Against Reprisals

Kohl, while warning against military reprisals, also rejected American demands that West Germany join the United States in an economic boycott of Libya.

“The Americans on this question react much more emotionally,” he said.

West Germany, which spends more than $2 billion a year for its oil from Libya, is the Tripoli government’s second-largest trading partner. About 1,500 West Germans work in Libya. In the past, the Bonn government has said sanctions would damage trade and endanger German lives while failing to achieve their objective of toppling or restraining Kadafi.

Kohl did issue a forceful statement about terrorism, however.

‘Ready to React’

“Whoever believes that the government of West Germany will allow attacks against American installations or American people will be disappointed,” he said. “We are ready to react with the necessary decisiveness. That’s what we have done, as our friends in France have also done.”

Following the example of France, West Germany expelled two Libyan diplomats from Bonn on Wednesday, evidently in response to American pressure. But the German government refused an American request that it close the embassy.

Gen. Bernard W. Rogers, the supreme allied commander in Europe, said in Atlanta on Wednesday night that the United States had “indisputable evidence” that linked the bombing to a worldwide, Kadafi-organized terrorist network. But German officials have said that they have seen no firm evidence of Libyan involvement in the bombing.

Allegations Supported

Much of the West German press, however, was citing evidence from American and German intelligence sources that seemed to support the U.S. government’s contention that Libya planned the bombing.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the German news agency, cited an intercepted cable from Tripoli to the Libyan People’s Bureau, or embassy, in East Berlin that indicated a bombing was planned. A second cable, from the embassy to Tripoli, according to the agency, reported that the mission was accomplished.

The newspaper Bild said that a Libyan, Mohammed Yasser Chraidi, who had passed into West Berlin from East Berlin a few days before the discotheque attack was a “killer commando” for Kadafi who was wanted for attempted murder.

In West Berlin, the three Allied military commanders met Friday in an evident attempt to work out an agreement that would ban all Libyan diplomats from crossing into West Berlin from East Berlin. No agreement was reached in a five-hour session Thursday reportedly because the French commander balked at the American request for a ban. The British commander went along with the American proposal.

Outcome Due Today

U.S. spokesman Thomas Homan said the outcome of the meeting would be made public by the British today. The British currently hold the rotating chairmanship of the council.

The French attitude on the tension between the United States and Libya has been cautious and somewhat ambiguous. The French government expelled two Libyan diplomats, a Tunisian and an Algerian 10 days ago, reportedly for planning anti-American attacks in Paris.

In his comments in Atlanta, Gen. Rogers said that the French expulsion of the two Libyan diplomats may have prevented a terrorist attack on U.S. Ambassador Joe M. Rodgers in Paris.

“I think you’ll find the press releasing the fact within a few days that (the Libyans) had, in fact, been party to a plan to terrorize the American ambassador in Paris,” he said.

Other U.S. sources, however, said that a grenade and machine-gun attack on the heavily used American Consulate in Paris was planned and narrowly averted by the expulsions.

French Refuse to Comment

The French government, although it ordered the Libyan diplomats out, did not announce that it had done so until the news leaked out in the American press. It has refused to comment on the incident ever since.

If the evidence is as damaging as Rogers contends, such conduct would indicate that even the new conservative government of Premier Jacques Chirac does not want to make public any evidence that might be used by Reagan as justification for reprisals.

The European reluctance to support reprisals is shared by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada. Saying that he did not agree with Reagan’s assessment of Kadafi as a “mad dog of the Middle East,” Mulroney warned against “a shotgun approach” in retaliating against terrorism.

“We advised our allies,” he told the House of Commons in Ottawa on Friday, “to act prudently and that any retribution be justified, and to act very cautiously in this whole area.”

While the Netherlands, which currently holds the presidency of the European Communities, began to organize the emergency meeting of the foreign ministers for next week, many of the ministers and leaders were conferring continually during the day.

Europeans Confer

In Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti and French External Relations Minister Jean-Bernard Raimond spent two hours discussing terrorism. Prime Minister Bettino Craxi of Italy telephoned Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, who recalled his ambassador from Tripoli on Thursday, to discuss the problem.

Giovanni Spadolini, the Italian defense minister, told a news conference, that “Only a political response from Europe (to terrorism) can reduce or eliminate the risk of unilateral American military action.”

He added that the European Communities should take measures “to isolate the countries that support terrorists.” Spadolini did not name those countries, but said later that member nations might want to re-examine their policies toward Libya.

If the United States does take military action against Libya, and Kadafi decides to retaliate in turn, Italy and Spain may be prime targets. The Libyan leader was quoted by JANA, the Libyan news agency, as saying,

“As the threat this time comes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and aims at striking against our homes and sons, then all south European cities are contained today, Friday, in the Libyan counterattack plan, without discrimination.”