TALKS BEGIN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 9, 21 October 1943, Page 3

TALKS BEGIN.

THE CONFERENCE AT MOSCOW. VIEWS OF FRENCH COMMITTEE LONDON, October 20. The Three-Power Conference in Moscow will meet once each day. Yesterday’s session lasted 2\ hours. No communiques will be issued until the confei'ence concludes. Most of the work will be done late at night and early in the mornings. The conference is marked by the determination of the delegates to reach complete understanding, says the Moscow correspondent of the “News Chronicle.” “There is any amount of friendly feeling in Moscow.” General de Gaulle and M. Rene Massigli (Free French Commissioner for Foreign Affairs) conferred with Mr Hull and Mr Eden when they were on the way to Moscow. “This was an unmistakeable implication that French views would be available at the Moscow confei’ence,” says the Algiers correspondent of the “New York Times. “A French Committee spokesman hidicated that the committee had now reached substantial unanimity, which would guide it for an indefinite period in future dealings with the Allies. “Although the committee has not yet been officially informed of its status in the political and militai y commission now being established, British and French circles assume that the committee will be an equal partner with Britain, Russia, and the United States. “French plans seem to be based on maintaining the closest possible relations with all the three major Powers rather than with one or two. Fortified by the victory in Corsica, the French are functioning more and more with a view to the triumphant return of de Gaulle to France. There is already an extremely strong link between the. committee and Russia. “The British probably do not want to see the French too closely allied with Russia, and will probably prefer to work closely with both. The United States and France are sure to become closer, in spite of a possible resurgence of isolationism in the United States This, according to one observer, is likely to be directed more at Britain than at any other nation If so, France will act as the best link between America and the Old Woi c, including Russia. “The French are perfectly we aware of a diehard conservative feeling both in Britain and America , against Russia, and they see a vita I ' role for themselves, not as mediators, but as intermediaries between Russia I and the two English *- speaking na* tions.”