The Parliamentary leader of West Germany’s opposition party demanded today that Arab terrorists who hijacked a Lufthansa jet in Rome yesterday after a murderous rampage be brought before the United Nations. Carl Karstens, who heads the Christian Democratic Union-Christian Socialist Union in the Bundestag, urged the Bonn government to take such action in concert with other European Common Market members. He expressed “profound disgust” at the hijacking and mass murders and said he hoped this feeling would be shared by those Arab states which might give the terrorists asylum. U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, in Madrid today for talks with Generalissimo Francisco Franco, said he was “morally outraged” by the slaughter.
In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban said. “The people of Israel are deeply moved by the loss of life, injury and anguish suffered by Americans. Italians and Germans in the attack by enemies of peace at Rome Airport. Our nation, whose citizens have often been the targets of these murderous assaults by Arab terrorists feel a deep sympathy for and solidarity with all their innocent victims everywhere.” United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim expressed “deep shock” at the “senseless and brutal killing of innocent people” in Rome and Athens. A statement issued on his behalf at UN headquarters in New York said the Secretary General “strongly condemns all acts of this nature wherever they may occur.” A UN spokesman said Waldheim has offered the good offices of the UN to the ambassadors of Italy, Greece and West Germany.
Israeli Ambassador Yaacov Doron said in the General Assembly today that “this latest and most dreadful example of most cruel and unbridled terrorism throws a harsh light on the refusal of the General Assembly this year to consider the agenda item concerning measures against terrorists.” Doron said his government dissociated itself from that refusal. Norway’s Foreign Minister Knut Frydenlund said in Oslo. “We are shocked by these tragic occurrences which have cost so many innocent people their lives. No political motivation can justify such acts. It is our hope that the terror attacks will not have a negative effect on the planned peace conference in Geneva.” In Bonn, Erik Blumenfeld, a CDU foreign policy expert, called on European states to act in unison to fight against air piracy. He described the Rome attack as “brutal murder.” The West German Foreign Office has established a “crisis unit” to determine what can be done to secure the release of the remaining hostages.
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