Eight Nations Agree To Anti-Terrorism Pact World’s Major Powers Decide To Draft New International Laws On Bomb Attacks

The world’s eight major powers agreed to a 25-point program of principles for fighting terrorism, including the drafting of a new international convention on terrorist bombings.

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno called it “incredible” that no existing international convention outlaws terrorist bomb attacks on targets such as ground transportation, although there are international rules covering attacks on air travel and shipping.

The proposed new convention would attempt to plug these gaps and try to make arrests and extraditions easier. The United States will probably host the drafting meetings this fall, officials said Tuesday. The United States wants to move swiftly, to take advantage of a general rise in public support for tougher new law-and-order measures stemming from the still-unexplained explosion of TWA Flight 800 and the blast at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.

Notably absent from Tuesday’s ministerial conference was any talk of the “strong sanctions” against countries such as Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Libya that President Clinton had called for Sunday in remarks to a veterans’ convention in New Orleans.

The United States has long wanted to impose economic punishments on countries it believes sponsors terrorism. But European officials made it clear before Tuesday’s meeting that they would reject any U.S. initiative to tighten the economic noose on individual countries.

“That was not the angle from which we looked at terrorism today,” said French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette, adding the main point was to “look at concrete, practical measures we could take so that we will be more effective tomorrow than we are today.”

Since 1992, the European Union has, for example, practiced what it calls a “critical dialogue” with Iran, trying to maintain neutral diplomatic contacts and allow trade. Europe argues that such a policy is more likely to achieve positive results than U.S.-style isolation.

Clearly outnumbered, the U.S. delegation did not even bring up the idea of sanctions in Paris.

“We realize that our friends and partners have questions” about the concept of sanctions, said State Department undersecretary for political affairs Peter Tarnoff, who was filling in for Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

Christopher remained in Washington Tuesday to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

In the interest of presenting a tough, united front to international terrorists, all conference participants Tuesday downplayed differences between the United States and Europe on sanctions.

Tuesday’s anti-terrorism conference was proposed by Clinton last month at a Group of Seven meeting in Lyon, France, after a truck bomb killed 19 U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia.

The participating countries included Russia, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany.