Japan Made Secret Effort to Aid Hostages

Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone dispatched a secret envoy to Iran and Syria last year in a bid to win the release of hostages in Beirut, and President Reagan telephoned his thanks, a former justice minister said Tuesday.

Akira Hatano, the former minister, said sending a special envoy to Tehran and Damascus in August, 1985, stemmed from his own idea of what action was needed to win the hostages’ release.

“I thought that since Japan had good relations with Iran and Syria, such contact might be fruitful,” Hatano said. “If those countries cooperated, then Japan could in turn cooperate in the future . . . such as buying more oil from them or increasing developmental aid.”

The contacts were made at Japan’s initiative and not in response to pressure from the Reagan Administration to join efforts to free the hostages, Hatano said.

‘Our Own Idea’

“It was our own idea, not a response to a U.S. request,” Hatano said. He said Reagan telephoned Nakasone in July, 1985, after the envoy’s mission was set up, to thank him for planning the trips.

“It was a thank-you call, that’s all,” Hatano said.

Nakasone was quoted Tuesday by Kyodo News Service as saying he received a call from Reagan--possibly the same one--during the summer of 1985.

Nakasone also said he sent a letter to Iranian Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani, but denied any connection with the U.S. sale of weapons to the fundamentalist Islamic government in Tehran.

“My sending a letter to . . . Rafsanjani was an independent action taken by Japan and had nothing to do with arms sales to Iran,” Nakasone was quoted as saying.