Austria ignores warnings, makes tentative deal

Tuesday, 1 February 2000 20:51 (ET)

Austria ignores warnings, makes tentative deal

By ASHLEY BAKER

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Despite threats of diplomatic isolation by the other 14 members of the European Union and the United States, Austrian parliamentary officials on Tuesday proposed a government coalition that included the rightist Freedom Party, denounced for making remarks supporting Nazi policies.

"The international community can hardly be expected to remain silent on this issue," said Deputy State Department Spokesman James Foley. "If the Freedom Party were to enter the government, it would affect our relations."

Foley said the U.S. position was based on statements by Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider that "explain away the Holocaust and ... express sympathy to the Nazi regime."

Foley said that Secretary of State Madeline Albright had conveyed the U.S. position in a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minster Wolfgang Schuessel, but declined to be more specific.

Asked if punishing the proposed coalition would be tantamount to dismissing the results of the Austrian election, Foley said, "a healthy democracy is constituted from a number of elements. One of these is elections. But they are not the end-all and be-all."

Haider's power-sharing deal is not final until accepted by Austrian President Thomas Klestil. State Department officials contacted late Tuesday declined further comment until Klestil's decision.

Haider and his part have been widely criticized within the EU. "If a party which has expressed xenophobic views, and which does not abide by the essential values of the European family, comes to power, naturally we won't be able to continue the same relations as in the past, however much we regret it," current EU President and Prime Minister of Portugal Antonio Guterres told reporters. "Nothing will be as before."

Haider, meanwhile, has dismissed the EU's views. "It is without explanation that the EU is making such threats," he said.

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