Europeans Agree to Pool Intelligence Data on Terrorists

The 12 governments of the European Communities, disturbed by the recent wave of bombings in Paris, agreed Thursday to pool their intelligence about terrorists so their police forces can “search out the vital links in terrorist operations and disrupt them.”

The interior and security ministers of the organization, after meeting in an emergency four-hour session here, said in a communique that they will create a new and speedy communications system to “target the major leaders and organizers” of terrorism. They also vowed that they will never make concessions to terrorists.

Douglas Hurd, the British home secretary who chaired the meeting, summarized its decisions for the news media. He did not describe the new system of what he called “speedy and secure communications” in detail, but other British officials said it will consist of a kind of international hot line among the police forces of the European Communities.

“Terrorists, by their choice of method, are not warriors but criminals, and must be treated as such,” Hurd declared.

Hurd said the ministers were considering other measures, including expulsion and extradition, to make sure “that a terrorist excluded or driven from one country cannot find entry or refuge in another.”

On the surface, the decision to cooperate and communicate more fully in the battle against terrorism does not seem to be a momentous one. But lack of cooperation has been one of the most obvious weaknesses in past European efforts to deal with terrorism. If the governments mean what they say, they may have taken a significant step.

France, often described as stubborn in its determination to handle terrorism on its own, called for the emergency session and announced its full support of the decisions. Hurd told reporters that every country has endorsed the decisions.

“There was no sense of any delegation hanging back,” he said.

Although many terrorist analysts believe that the governments of Syria, Iran and Libya manipulate many of the terrorists in Europe, Hurd said the question was not discussed at the meeting. Nor, he said, was there any discussion of some kind of intergovernmental European police force to strike at the terrorists. He said such a force would be “confusing and might hurt rather than help.”

Robert Pandraud, the professional policeman who is France’s deputy minister of security, denied at a news conference that France has decided to negotiate with Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the 35-year-old Lebanese prisoner whose release has been demanded by the band that has terrorized Paris with bombs this month. Nine people were killed and more than 160 injured in the space of 10 days.

Archbishop’s Visit

The French government confirmed earlier in the day that it has allowed Archbishop Hilarion Capucci of the Greek Orthodox Church to visit Abdallah in a Paris prison but denied that he was acting as any kind of mediator.

French officials said that Capucci, a Syrian close to Syrian President Hafez Assad, brought some messages to Abdallah and that the visit gave the French a chance to disprove accusations that the prisoner has been mistreated by French police.

Pandraud, who met with the archbishop earlier, told the London news conference that he informed Capucci that “we will not negotiate.”

“I think,” Pandraud went on, “that he understood the message we gave him.”

He said everyone knows that “any surrender to blackmail leads to more blackmail,” and he added that those who offer sanctuary to terrorists “are not wise because terrorism will be turned against them someday.”

The meeting heard reports from Hurd, Pandraud, the Spanish minister and the German minister on terrorism in their countries.

Hurd said the new exchange of information about terrorist leaders their threats and their activities “will help us to target terrorists’ movements, supplies of money, arms and equipment, so that we can harry and disrupt them.”