As speculation mounted that one or more of the Western hostages held by Shi’ite groups in Lebanon would soon be released, Israel reiterated its readiness to exchange Shi’ite prisoners in Israeli jails for Israeli soldiers being held in Lebanon.
Israel would “welcome” a prisoner swap, Danny Naveh, media adviser to Defense Minister Moshe Arens, said in a statement.
“As we have said repeatedly, if the Red Cross will allow Israel access to its soldiers, we will be prepared to negotiate. In this framework, we will free Lebanese prisoners in exchange for missing Israeli prisoners,” Naveh said.
Hopes about a hostage release were raised Tuesday, when the Islamic Jihad group in Lebanon issued a statement saying that in the next 48 hours it would dispatch to the United Nations “a special envoy carrying a message of extreme importance” for U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar.
The message, released to a Lebanese news agency and also reported in Iran, was accompanied by a photograph of Terry Anderson, former Associated Press bureau chief in Beirut, who has been held the longest of any Western hostage.
In Washington, the White House on Wednesday said it had received numerous reports from diplomatic sources in the Middle East about an imminent hostage release.
Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that most of the reports spoke of an American and a British hostage being released.
Israel has seven soldiers listed as missing in Lebanon, some of whom have not been heard from for as long as eight years.
Israel’s traditional policy has been that it will not make concessions to effect the release of hostages from other nations. But it will do whatever is necessary to secure the release of its own soldiers missing in action.
Lawyer Amnon Zichroni, who has been involved in the past in negotiating prisoner swaps between Israel and the Arabs, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that in his opinion, any statements made by Islamic Jihad on the hostage situation have been coordinated with its patron, the Iranian government.
“If anything is going on, then it is on a state level, between Iran and the Western countries,” he said.
Zichroni added that Israel should be encouraged by the possibility of the release of Western hostages, since once the process of freeing prisoners begins, it will likely continue.
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