AUSTRIA AND TURKEY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 245, 13 October 1908, Page 5

AUSTRIA AND TURKEY.

A JUSTIFICATION. SPECIOUS DIPLOMACY. SERVIA'S ATTITUDE. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 8.10 a.m.) VTENNA, October 12. Baron Aehrenthal, Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs, contends that the secret treaty between Austria and. Turkey, signed at the time the Berlin Treaty was negotiated, in which Austria promised that Turkey's sovereign rights in the two provinces would not suffer infringement, and that the Austrian occupation would be considered temporary, is virtually annulled by a convention signed in Constantinople on April 21, 1879, a year after the Berlin Treaty. This convention did not mention that the occupation was provisional, and thus, says the Minister, the previous agreement is annulled. He remarked that the secret agreement of 1878 was signed against Austria's will, for the reason that Turkey wanted to break up the Congress at the last moment. Count Andrassy, Austria's plenipotentiary, thinking that occupation of the provinces would suffice for the immediate •future, then entered into the secret treaty and thus secured the completion of the Berlin Treaty. LONDON, October 12. The "London Daily Telegraph" characterises Baron Aehrenthal's statement as extraordinary. "The Times" declares that the principle is dangerous, adding that Austria lias signed many treaties against her will.