Iran’s $1-Billion Demand Not Linked to Hostages--France
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NEW YORK — The $1 billion Iran seeks from France has nothing to do with French hostages captured by terrorists in Lebanon, the French ambassador to the United Nations said today.
Ambassador Claude de Kemoularia said the money is an investment in the French atomic energy made by the government of the ousted shah and sought by its successor.
He declined to go into more detail.
“We have more hostages than you have and we have to be very careful when we have to take on this subject,” Kemoularia told an audience of about 800 at a forum on terrorism.
He made the remarks in response to a question about news reports that the French government had agreed to pay $1 billion to Iran and a lesser sum to the abductors of nine Frenchmen in Lebanon.
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