Now, the Cod Peace

Iceland 3, Britain 0.

This seemed to be the score last week after Reykjavik handily won the third round--as it had the previous two --in the so-called Cod War, a 17-year-old dispute with London over the valuable fishing rights in the chilling Arctic waters off the Icelandic coast. At a hastily arranged meeting in "neutral" Oslo, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Crosland and Icelandic Foreign Minister Einar Agustsson signed a six-month agreement that could end what had become an increasingly acrimonious disagreement between the two NATO allies (they broke off diplomatic relations last February) and was even threatening to impair the alliance itself.

What triggered the most recent conflict was Iceland's unilateral claim last October that its territorial waters extended 200 miles from its coast.*

When Iceland's patrol boats attempted to thwart British fishing by cutting the trawlers' costly nets and towlines, British fishermen demanded protection. London responded by ordering Royal Navy frigates into the area to shield the trawlers from the Icelandic boats. What often followed was a seaborne game of "chicken." Ships of the two countries, in fact, came so close together in the choppy waters that they collided dozens of times. To tiny Iceland (pop. 219,000), the conflict again became a matter of David's facing down Goliath. But it was also a matter of economic survival, for cod provide 40% of the country's exports, and Reykjavik fears that massive overfishing by foreigners in Iceland's waters has been dangerously depleting the area's fish stock. London counters that codfishing near Iceland is also important to the British, worth $69 million a year.

Yet Britain last week grudgingly backed down, tacitly recognizing Iceland's new claim. In the new accord, London has promised to send no more than 24 fishing trawlers per day into Iceland's 200-mile zone, to respect Icelandic-defined fish "conservation" areas, and to permit Icelandic patrol vessels to halt and inspect British trawlers suspected of violating the agreement. This, in effect, will limit British fishermen to about 30,000 tons of cod annually from the disputed area, compared with 130,000 tons last year. Moreover, some 1,500 British seamen and 7,500 workers ashore may lose their jobs because of the reduced cod catch.

Key Base. London apparently agreed to such harsh terms mainly because it was under pressure from the U.S. and Norway, which feared that Iceland would make good on its threat to quit NATO if the 200-mile zone was not respected. That could have denied the alliance the key Keflavik base from which Soviet surface and submarine naval activity has been monitored. London now hopes that when the new treaty expires in six months, the Common Market, as a bloc, will negotiate new terms with Iceland that will enable Britain to increase its harvest of Icelandic cod.

* In the first "war" (1958), Britain was unable to prevent Iceland from extending its fishing limits from four miles to twelve miles; in the second (1972-73), Iceland extended its limit to 50 miles.

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