State Dept. Comes to Aid of Parking Scofflaws

Besides bombings, hijackings and failed trade agreements, U.S. diplomats abroad soon may have another worry: retaliatory towing.

The State Department is so concerned that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to tow diplomatic scofflaws’ cars could lead to retaliation against U.S. diplomats abroad that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell personally intervened.

Powell asked Bloomberg to resume negotiations with State.

“It is always a possibility that there could be retaliation against U.S. vehicles overseas,” said a senior U.S. official who asked not to be identified. “The thought of a U.S. diplomatic courier vehicle moving through the streets of, say, Xanadu, carrying classified material and having that vehicle seized by a foreign government, I don’t find that being in the best interest of the United States.”

Xanadu is fictional, and being a good diplomat, the official didn’t want to name a specific country. But there are plenty of nations targeted by Bloomberg’s crackdown on unpaid tickets. The city plans to start towing cars today with consular plates that have more than $250 in outstanding fines.

Thursday night, city and State Department officials resumed negotiations after Bloomberg received Powell’s call. The nation’s top diplomat asked Bloomberg “to return to the table to resolve this dispute, before we [the city] are forced to tow cars,” Bloomberg spokesman Jordan Barowitz said.

The issue of diplomatic parking--and diplomats using their immunity to avoid paying summonses--has long soured relations between the city and the U.N.

Officials say that, since 1997, the city is owed more than $21.3 million in summonses and penalties accumulated by the 2,300 consular and diplomatic cars licensed by the State Department in the New York area--more than $9,000 per vehicle on average.

Topping the list are Egypt, with $1.9 million in fines; Kuwait, with almost $1.3 million; and Nigeria, at $1.2 million.

“We hope that the city and the State Department will be able to settle this issue diplomatically,” said Elizabeth Oddiri, of the Nigerian mission to the United Nations. She declined further comment.