PLAIN SPEAKING TO RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24866, 4 May 1946, Page 7

PLAIN SPEAKING TO RUSSIA

Policy In Europe Sought

FOREIGN MINISTERS’ CONFERENCE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 P-m.) LONDON, May 2. The first informal meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the “Big Four” ended after nearly three hours in an effort to escape the admitted deadlock into which the first week’s formal meetings landed the conference, says Reuter’s correspondent in Paris. The diplomatic correspondent of the “Daily Mail” says that the United States Foreign Minister (Mr James Byrnes) yesterday had some plain speaking with Mr Molotov. Mr Byrnes invited Mr Molotov to state frankly and fearlessly the objects of Russian policy in Europe. “Is it expansionist,” Mr Byrnes asked, “or does Russia want to co-operate with others in peace building?” He reiterated America’s offer of a 25-year mutual aid pact, asking Mr Molotov if Russia was ready to sign it He finally asked Mr Molotov to say bluntly why Russia felt her security was menaced and by whom.

“It was the first piece of straight talking since the conference opened,” the correspondent says, “but it does not appear to have produced much enlightenment from Mr Molotov, whose continued intransigence Is preventing real progress.

“There is already talk that if the pace does not quicken the American delegation may return home and make separate peace treaties. Some of the more politically minded members of the delegation are reported as saying that it is time the United States, with all her power, ceased being pushed around, presumably by Russia.”

The Informal meetings at the conference were decided on “in the Interests of greater understanding and faster progress.” The deadlock arose when Russia opposed the other Powers on the question of an Allied Mission to supervise the apprehension of Italian war criminals and other military clauses in the peace treaty .with Italy, states the Paris correspondent of Reuter’s. The conference may now retreat into the complete secrecy in which the Russians expected it would be conducted from the start, and observers consider it unlikely that background talks to the press will be continued now the stage of realistic bargaining has been reached. The conference sb far, says the correspondent has been the least secretive international conference for years. Ministers to-day supported Jugoslavia's claim for a number of islands off the Dalmatian Coast including Pelagosa. on condition that they were not fortified. , pianosa Island was awarded to Italy on the same condition. Both islands are off the boot of Italy. “The Times” describes Pelagosa as almost a desert island with a lighthouse used chiefly as a haven by Italian and Jugoslav fishermen, and adds that MT Bevin made a proviso that the flshermen’s rights be respected in awarding the islands. The Paris correspondent of “The Times" comments: “The four Ministers certainly covered much ground but chiefly in hedge-hopping. They referred most of the more intricate matters to expert committees in which all the old political differences over Italian reparations and the division of the Italian fleet are inevitably cropping Up in what should be purely technical dis-

cussions. “The conference has not yet tackled a wider matter on which the powers are most acutely divided—for example, the Venezia Siulia frontier—apart from Trieste, on which they faced four different lines drawn by the four different members of the commission which visited the area. The lines are not yet made public, but it is teamed that the Russians would give far more of the area to Jugoslavia than the other Powers regarded just.” The Paris eorrespondefit of the “Dally Telegraph" says that Messrs Byrnes and Bevin are disappointed that the council has not made more real, aa opposed to superficial progress. He understands that there has been some true, if not very diplomatic, observations by Mr Bevin about Russian distrust of the motives of the other conference Powers.