|
A FORMER Icelandic Government Minister has told how he was threatened with death while negotiating the Cod War settlement between his country and Britain more than 35 years ago.
Matthias Bjarnason (no relation to Jon Bjarnason who resigned as fisheries minister last year) was Fisheries Minister during the critical negotiations in 1975 during which Iceland successfully extended its fishing limits from 50 to 200 miles. The move however spelt the end of the distant water fishing fleets at British ports like Grimsby, Hull, Fleetwood and Aberdeen and has been a source of bitterness among former UK trawlermen ever since.
The nearest it came to a "hot" war was when the frigate HMS Andromeda rammed the gunboat Thor which had fired a shot at the British support tug Lloydsman.
Now in a recent interview with Bohemian Best Mr Bjarnason has thrown intriguing new light on the Cod War dispute which saw Royal Navy warships battling it out with Icelandic gunboats which were harassing British trawlers.
He said that during the negotiations a man phone him up and threatened him with betraying Iceland and then said he was going to come to his home and kill him using a gun. Mr Bjarnason told the caller that he too had a gun and was ready to use it, but he later admitted that he had never shot anything in his life before.
During the talks Mr Bjarnason met the British Foreign Secretary Anthony Crosland who also happened to be MP for Grimsby, then Britain's largest fishing port. Mr Crosland feared at the time that a British sell-out would cost him his seat and he died of a stroke a year or so later.
Norway attempted to broker a peace deal but Mr Bjarnsaon told Bohemian Best that he found the Norwegians as being "too much for themselves" except Norway's Foreign Minister Knut Frydenlund who helped break the deadlock between Britain and Iceland.
Should people be 'stimulated' to eat white fish alternatives to cod?
