Won’t Negotiate With Terrorists, Chirac Vows at U.N.

French Premier Jacques Chirac pledged Wednesday that he will neither negotiate with terrorists nor withdraw French troops from the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon despite a wave of terrorist attacks both in Lebanon and Paris.

Speaking to the General Assembly, Chirac said the series of bombings in Paris in recent days, as well as the attack on a Turkish synagogue and the hijacking of a Pan American World Airways jetliner in Pakistan, “prove, once more, that terrorism has become the systematic weapon of a war without borders and most often without a face.”

Terrorism, he said, is the most urgent challenge to the world and requires concrete countermeasures, including international action to improve security in the air and on the sea.

Chirac, who entered the U.N. building behind a phalanx of American security agents, said terrorism “would take us back to ages we thought were long gone if we allow it a free hand to corrupt democracies and destroy the basic rules of international life.”

Although he conceded that terrorism may have roots in national liberation movements, “the odious methods, the slaughter of innocent people carried out in free societies, the continuing blackmail using the lives of hostages rule out our confusing these actions with genuine resistance.”

The conservative premier said that the situation in Lebanon, where a contingent of 1,500 French soldiers in the U.N. peacekeeping force has borne the brunt of aggression by guerrilla forces in southern Lebanon, has become “intolerable” in recent weeks. Four French soldiers have been killed and another 33 injured.

France’s sacrifices, he said, give it the right to demand that the peacekeeping force be given the necessary means to carry out its mission, though he did not elaborate.

Withdrawal Not Considered

At a news conference after his address, Chirac made it clear that he is not thinking of pulling out the French contingent, an action that would probably break up the 5,800-man unit, formally known as the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Most of the eight other nations providing smaller elements of the force have registered complaints about the conditions of their participation, not the least of which is the failure of the United Nations to pay the costs.

“We have no intention of withdrawing our force, and we are not calling for the withdrawal of UNIFIL,” Chirac said when asked about a French-sponsored resolution adopted by the Security Council on Tuesday.

The resolution, endorsed by 14 nations, asked Israel to withdraw its forces from a security zone in southern Lebanon and called on UNIFIL troops to move to the Israel border. The United States abstained from voting on the resolution. U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar was asked to report within three weeks on the resolution’s implementation.

“It won’t happen within three weeks, but we hope that everyone will shoulder his responsibilities,” Chirac said.

Chirac refused to explain what he meant in saying that UNIFIL must be given the means to protect itself and maintain peace. Asked if this meant heavy weapons and additional troops for the force, he replied: “It was not France which set up the force. It is the Security Council which must decide.”

He agreed with the assertion of Israeli Ambassador Benjamin Netanyahu in the Security Council debate Tuesday that Israeli forces are not responsible for the attacks on U.N. peacekeeping troops. But he refused to confirm Netanyahu’s charges that Iran and Syria sponsor the guerrillas who have repeatedly attacked the French, Irish and other contingents of the U.N. force.

“The government of Damascus assured us of their support for UNIFIL,” Chirac said. “Hezbollah (a militant, fundamentalist Muslim guerrilla organization that operates in Lebanon) is certainly linked with Iran, but I wouldn’t make any accusations without proof.”

The premier offered an explanation for French reluctance to accuse the regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini when he volunteered that negotiations are under way to restore diplomatic relations between Tehran and Paris and to settle Iran’s debts to France.

He also volunteered that a French mission is currently in Damascus, a move that Arab sources here said is aimed at enlisting Syrian and Iranian cooperation in halting the attacks on UNIFIL and liberating French and American hostages in Lebanon.

Chirac insisted on several occasions that terrorist activities in France are related to the imprisonment of Arab suspects and not to the French role in the Mideast. He denied a report Wednesday in a Paris newspaper, Le Canard Enchaine, that French officials have met with the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Faction, the terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for the Paris bombings that have killed nine people and injured more than 160 since Sept. 8.

“I’m allergic to blackmail,” he said. “We haven’t the slightest intention of negotiating with terrorists.”

In Paris, meanwhile, police arrested four French nationals suspected of terrorism and linked to the left-wing Direct Action terrorist group, wire services reported.