INDIA’S STATUS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 158, 16 April 1949, Page 5

INDIA’S STATUS

Relations With Britain

CO-OPERATION LIKELY

, (N.Z.P.A.-Copyright) (Egg. 9.30) NEW DELHI, April 15. The British United Press, quot--ing reports current in New Delhi, says that Mr Pandit Nehru will teil the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London that India is willing to continue her association with the Commonwealth so long as there is no challenge to her new status as a sovereign democratic republic arid no interference with her foreign, internal and defence policies.

The Commonwealth, reports say, would be regarded as a smaller United Nations within the world organisation. They add that there is every possibility that India’s' association with the Commonwealth will not be ended as the result of the London conference.

A Karachi message states that the Burmese leader, Iliakin Nu, after a meeting with the Pakistan Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Klian, to-day, said: “Although we are not in the British Commonwealth we cannot afford to keep aloof and independent of the Commonwealth countries in economic and defence matters.”

■ Thakin Nu said he hoped that Liaquat Ali Khan would place all the facts about Burma in their right perspective “before the British Cabinet during the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference.