Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 20, 1990 TAG: 9004200286
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The kidnappers, who had promised to free one captive by Friday, did not set a new deadline.
But Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa of Syria, which has been involved in negotiations to free the hostages, said after the postponement that he was confident that the release will be completed by Sunday.
President Bush justified his decision not to send the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, John Kelly, to the Middle East by saying that would have amounted to giving in to kidnappers' demands and could have enmeshed the United States in a negotiation with hostage takers, which his administration has categorically prohibited.
"The United States does not knuckle under to demands," said Bush, speaking with reporters at a news conference in Florida after talks with President Francois Mitterrand, whose government bargained with Libya last week for the freedom of three French nationals held captive in Beirut.
"We have a perfectly capable, accredited diplomat on the scene in Syria to work toward the release, if it comes to that," Bush said.
The American ambassador to Syria, Edward Djerejian, was ordered back to Damascus on Wednesday from Bonn, where he was meeting with other American diplomats, including Kelly.
In a statement Wednesday, the group, the Islamic Holy War for the Liberation of Palestine, demanded Kelly fly to Damascus "to coordinate some final steps to guarantee success" of the handing over of one of the three Americans it holds hostage.
The group did not specify what kind of coordination it had in mind or identify which hostage would be released.
Officials said those too were important factors in the administration's decision not to dispatch Kelly.
In its statement Thursday, the kidnappers said: "All arrangements to free the American hostage were set to be finalized. But Kelly's failure to respond has so far frustrated the release, which made us postpone this operation until the picture is cleared."
"We shouldn't be put on the defensive, the kidnappers should be," an administration official said. "They are holding human beings against their will. They could let them go at any time. Who knows, we could have sent Kelly and the minute he gets over there, they would say, `Sorry, you don't have on green shoes.' Whether it is Kelly or ammunition, you don't negotiate with hostage takers."
by CNB