De Klerk Meets Mitterrand on European Tour

President Frederik W. de Klerk met Thursday with French President Francois Mitterrand, launching a nine-nation diplomatic offensive by becoming the first South African leader to visit the Elysee Palace in more than 40 years.

The talks underscored the progress De Klerk has made in eight months as president toward easing South Africa’s isolation and convincing Western leaders that he is serious about ending apartheid.

Paris is the first stop for De Klerk on an 18-day European tour to seek support for his reform initiatives and a lifting of economic sanctions. It is the most extensive foreign mission by a South African head of state since the National Party took power in 1948.

Mitterrand and other Western leaders agreed to receive De Klerk after he ordered the release of Nelson Mandela in February and lifted a 30-year ban on the African National Congress.

Mandela, the ANC deputy president, is expected to meet Mitterrand on June 7 when he visits France as part of his own European tour, Hubert Vedrine, the Elysee Palace presidential spokesman announced Thursday.

Mandela and De Klerk agreed during talks last week to work together to end political violence and clear the way for formal negotiations on a post-apartheid constitution that would extend voting rights to the black majority.

De Klerk is scheduled to leave Paris on Friday for Greece, with later stops planned in Portugal, Belgium, Britain, West Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.

Meanwhile, Mandela arrived Thursday in Angola and thanked the Marxist government and its allies for supporting his African National Congress in its struggle against white-minority rule in South Africa.

In an emotional speech to tens of thousands of Angolans packing Luanda’s dusty May 1 Square, Mandela said, “I pay tribute to comrade President (Jose Eduardo) dos Santos, his government and the Angolan people for all the help they have given us.”