U.S. OFFERS TO ESCORT KUWAITI TANKERS IN GULF
The U.S. Has offered warships to
escort Kuwaiti tankers in the Gulf past Iranian anti-ship
missile batteries, Defence Department officials said.
    The officials told Reuters yesterday the offer was made
last week by Navy Admiral William Crowe, chairman of the
Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a Middle East visit.
    Reagan administration officials said later that Washington
did not seek military confrontation with Tehran, but would not
let Iran use Chinese-made "Silkworm" anti-ship missiles, capable
of covering the narrow entrance to the Gulf, to choke oil
shipments to the West.
    Defence officials said Kuwait had asked if protection for
up to a dozen vessels, most of them tankers, could be provided
by three U.S. Navy destroyers and two frigates now in the
southern Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
    In addition to a half dozen ships in the U.S. Navy's small
Mideast Task Force near the Straits of Hormuz, the Pentagon has
moved 18 warships, including the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk,
into the northern Arabian Sea in the past month.
    White House and defence officials said that massing the
fleet was routine and had nothing to do with the Iran-Iraq war
or Iran's stationing of missiles near the mouth of the Gulf.
    The State Department said on Friday that Iran has been told
about U.S. Concern over the threat to oil shipments in the
Gulf. The communication was sent through Switzerland, which
represents U.S. Interests in Iran.
    Iran denied as baseless reports that it intended to
threaten shipping in the Gulf and said any U.S. Interference in
the region would meet a strong response, Tehran Radio said on
Sunday.
    Several hundred vessels have been confirmed hit in the Gulf
by Iran and Iraq since early 1984 in the so-called tanker war,
an offshoot of their 6-1/2-year-old ground conflict.
 REUTER
