Word: lauro
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Surprisingly, the U.S. ploy worked. When the Achille Lauro tried to enter Syrian waters near Tartus, the Syrians turned it away. Cyprus also refused to allow the ship into port. Said a senior U.S. diplomat in Washington: "Everyone had been sensitized. It wasn't so much a matter of U.S. pressure as the fact that no one wanted these pirates on their hands." The Achille Lauro had little choice but to turn back toward Egypt's Port Said...
Meanwhile the governments involved agreed to let Cairo take the lead in talking with the hijackers. The decision seemed logical since Mubarak enjoyed close relations with the P.L.O., and the Achille Lauro was steaming back toward Egypt. But from the start, the U.S., Italy and Egypt were not thinking alike about the crisis. All agreed, however, that there were three key issues: 1) safety of the hostages, 2) concessions to the hijackers, and 3) future punishment for the terrorists...
...official: "We had indications all along that the Egyptians were moving that way. We weighed in when we could." In the end, Italy agreed to go along with Egypt in offering safe passage to the hijackers on one condition: that there had been no killing aboard the Achille Lauro...
...next six hours, the U.S., according to Washington sources, demanded access to the Achille Lauro to make sure all the Americans aboard were safe. Meanwhile, rumors flew that one or more U.S. citizens had been killed. Washington also wanted to know where the terrorists were. Administration officials feared that Egypt was, in the words of one, "trying to get rid of them" as quickly as possible...
...Ambassador Veliotes announced from the Achille Lauro that Klinghoffer had been murdered. Two hours later, White House Spokesman Speakes declared that the U.S. was "saddened and outraged by the brutal killing of an innocent American," and urged Egypt "in the strongest terms" to bring the perpetrators to book...