a251  1616  04 Dec 88
AM-Shultz-Arafat,0408
Shultz: US Broke No UN Agreement in Barring PLO Leader Arafat
    WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States broke no United Nations
agreement when it barred Palestine Liberation Organization leader
Yasser Arafat from entering the country to speak at U.N. headquarters
in New York, Secretary of State George Shultz said Sunday.
    The treaty that allowed the world organization to locate in New York
generally prohibits the United States from imposing any impediment to
the entry of those having business with the U.N., Shultz
acknowledged.
    ''But we carefully preserved our right to exclude people who we
think threaten the security interests of the United States,'' Shultz
said on ABC's ''This Week With David Brinkley.''
    ''Do we have the right to exclude anybody that the U.N. invites? The
answer to that is, clearly, yes, we do,'' Shultz continued. ''And
then, second, within the scope of that reservation, given our law,
was it proper to exclude Arafat on the grounds of terrorism and
terrorism's relationship to our security? And I think the answer to
that is yes.''
    Shultz said he is comfortable with the decision he made a week
earlier to bar Arafat, even though only Israel backed the United
States when his move was condemned on a vote in the U.N. General
Assembly.
    ''I live in the United States and I'm secretary of state for the
United States and I was very pleased to hear what, I think, around 68
senators of the United States had to say,'' the secretary said.
    Sixty-eight senators and senators-elect of both parties signed a
letter hailing Shultz's decision.
    Newsweek magazine, meanwhile, cited unidentified U.S. intelligence
sources as saying that Palestinian hard-liners, perhaps led by the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, planned terrorist
attacks in New York if Arafat spoke at the United Nations.
    The hard-liners, Newsweek said, viewed Arafat's speech as too
conciliatory. The early draft of the speech ''refrained from
explicitly recognizing Israel but talked in general terms of Israeli
and Palestinian states working together,'' Newsweek said.
    The secretary of state was asked why he would allow Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega, whose government the United States opposes,
to come to the U.N.
    ''There is a law in the United States that finds the PLO to be a
terrorist organization and denies visas to members of the PLO,'' he
replied. ''There is no such law having to do with Nicaragua.''
    
 
AP-NY-12-04-88 1904EST
***************