Western Foreign Ministers Vow to Try to Ease Tensions

PARIS —  West European foreign ministers pledged today to step up diplomatic contacts to try to ease U.S.-Libyan tensions and again called on the two nations to show restraint.

“What is on our minds is . . . to avoid a military escalation,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek, chairman of the meeting of the foreign ministers of the 12 nations of the European Community, or Common Market.

He said the Common Market as a whole and its members individually will contact Arab nations, the United States, the Soviet Union and the nonaligned group of countries to seek a political solution to the Mediterranean crisis.

Unaware of Strike

Van den Broek said the ministers were satisfied that when European foreign ministers met in the Netherlands on Monday to discuss the crisis, British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe was unaware that U.S. military strikes against Libya were imminent.

“It has been established . . . that when we met in The Hague, no definite decision about (U.S.) military action was known to any participant at that meeting,” Van den Broek said. American jets hit Libyan targets only six hours after that meeting ended--with a plea to the United States to show restraint.

Some of the jets, F-111 bombers, are based at U.S. bases in Britain, and their deployment had raised speculation that Howe knew of the planned strikes when he met his colleagues at The Hague.

Officials who asked not to be named said Italy, Greece and Spain expressed “embarrassment” that the United States attacked Libya so shortly after the European Community had urged Washington to show moderation.

The three nations have expressed concern in recent days that they may be singled out by Libya for retaliation for the U.S. attack.