TNAG-1026-FCO40-1276-Visit-by-Lord-Carrington--Secretary-of-State-for-Foreign-and-1981 — Page 19

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He added that at a recent meeting with Hammandi, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, he detected a softening in the Iraqi attitude but that he did not think the Islamic group of eight would achieve much. Lord Carrington went on to say that from the point of view of Britain and the West there were two objectives:

(i)

Iran should not be driven into the arms of the Soviet

Union. Lord Carrington hoped that in the coming months Britain would be able to play a greater part in Iran as we are no longer inhibited from doing so by the problem of the Anglican

missionaries;

Lord Carrington

(ii) to prevent the conflict from spreading.

said HMG's policy was not to provide weapons to either side. If countries encouraged Iraq and Iran by providing weapons

there was a danger that the conflict will escalate. In this

context it was important to remember that two thirds of the

world's oil went through the Straits of Hormuz.

Huang Hua said that he had told Selazzi and other Iranians

that China was strictly neutral. But he hoped that the two

sides would find a mutually acceptable solution to stop the

conflict and settle through negotiation. He added that Selazzi

now admitted that the threat in the Gulf came from the USSR

and the USA. This showed a change of attitude as in the past

the Iranians had referred to only one danger, the USA. Lord

Carrington agreed with this assessment. He said the main danger was that the Tudeh Party in Iran was well organised; the

Soviet Union would therefore be well placed to take advantage

of a troubled internal situation in Iran.

Arab/Israel

3. Lord Carrington said that the US election and the announcement of a general election in Israel had slowed down the pace of events. US policy was still not known. The attitude of the Israeli Government would not be known until

June or perhaps later. In the meantime the EC was working on some aspects of the problem such as security, withdrawal, self determination, Jerusalem etc. When this was completed

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