The Bridge | Page 14

“A new Cold War?”

Britain and Iceland accused each other of aggression yesterday in angry letters to the United Nations. At the same time the Government delivered a frosty Note to the Icelandic Government protesting at "continued violent harassment" of British trawlers.

The protests mark a serious cooling in relations between the two governments, following the introduction of British

frigates into the cod war, Protesters hurled rocks and bricks at the British Embassy in Reykjavik, and Icelandic fishermen fired shots at a Grimsby trawler

While NATO sat on the fence again yesterday it seems impossible after last night's public slanging for the alliance to ignore the chill between two of its members. Iceland's Foreign Minister, Mr Einar Agustsson, said in Reykjavik yesterday that his Government would put NATO "on notice very soon" about the withdrawal of American forces from the key NATO surveillance base at Keflavik. Iceland must give six months' notice before ordering the 3,300 American servicemen out..

Anti-NATO feeling has swelled substantially in the wake of NATO's failure so far to intervene in the cod war.

Mr Agustsson said his Government was writing to the Chairman of the UN Security Council protesting against British "aggression" and asking the Council's help to stop it.

The minister also disclosed that Iceland would offer West Germany, another party to the dispute, free fishing outside a 30-mile zone. This would allow German trawlers to fish 20 miles closer to Iceland than the British. Asked if this was favouritism, he replied: "There's a tremendous difference in the attitude they have shown. The Germans have not sent warships into our waters."

Britain's Note, delivered in Reykjavik yesterday, said: "We reject your assertion that the presence of the Royal Navy in the area constitutes an act of aggression against a NATO ally. The waters form part of the high seas in which British trawlers are fishing as of right. It is the Iceland Government who, by their constant violent harassment, have now made it impossible for British trawlers to fish there without naval protection and have thus made necessary the decision which the Government has reluctantly taken. It is the British Government, therefore, which has cause to complain of the use of force by a NATO ally."

In Brussels yesterday, Iceland requested the NATO allies to take immediate steps to stop British warships from protecting "illegal fishing by British trawlers inside the fisheries jurisdiction of Iceland" and to leave the disputed area.