The World - News from April 25, 1989
South Africa, suspected of attempting to make an illicit arms deal with Northern Ireland extremists, denied that it dealt with terrorists but defended the right of its weapons industry to shop around for technology. Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said Pretoria has launched an inquiry into the actions of one of its Paris diplomats, reportedly caught last Friday with three members of the Protestant Ulster Defense Assn. and an American arms dealer trying to trade South African arms for a demonstrator model of a British Blowpipe surface-to-air missile. Botha said that South Africa has an obligation to maintain its defensive capacity in the face of an international arms embargo.
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