Allies Back U.S. in Gulf Action, Say Navy Had Right to Defend Itself

U.S. allies in Europe expressed regret at the downing of an Iranian airliner by a U.S. warship Sunday but said U.S. forces had the right to defend themselves in the Persian Gulf.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said the incident “underlines the urgent need for an early end to the Iran-Iraq conflict, including an end to all attacks on shipping.”

Thatcher said in a statement that her government deeply regretted the loss of life in the attack. But she added: “We understand that in the course of an engagement following an Iranian attack on the U.S. force, warnings were given to an unidentified aircraft apparently closing with a U.S. warship.”

Mistaken for Warplane

The United States said it mistook the jetliner for an Iranian warplane.

In West Germany, the conservative Die Welt newspaper defended the U.S. action, saying it resulted from the confused situation in the war-torn Persian Gulf.

“The situation in the gulf, where warships and tankers, bombers and passenger airliners are on the move near one another, does not exclude the possibility” that noncombatants could accidentally become victims, the newspaper said in an editorial for today’s editions.

“No one can seriously make the accusation that this catastrophe resulted from pre-meditation by the United States,” the newspaper said.

‘Regrettable Incident’

In the Netherlands, a Foreign Ministry spokesman called the downing of the Iranian airliner “a very regrettable incident in a complicated situation.”

The French government said it learned “with consternation” of the loss of the Iranian airliner.

A statement issued in Paris by the Foreign Ministry said all possible light should be shed on “the conditions in which such a tragic misunderstanding could have happened.”

Also in Paris, the Ayatollah Mahdi Rouhani, spiritual head of the Shia Muslim community in Europe, made public a telegram he said he sent to President Reagan in which he deplored the “savage act of the American Navy against the Iranian civilian plane.”

Prosecution Demanded

The Paris-based Rouhani, who opposes Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but supports the Islamic Republic, said he demanded in the telegram the resignation of the naval commander involved in the incident and the “prosecution of the authors of this horrible homicide.”

M. T. Mehdi, president of the New York-based American-Arab Relations Committee, urged in a telegram to the White House that Reagan “personally apologize to the Iranian people and government.”

He also called on Reagan to “offer to pay compensation to the victims of the tragedy and withdraw the American naval power from the gulf as soon as possible.”