PLEBISCITE NOT FAVOURED

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24868, 7 May 1946, Page 5

PLEBISCITE NOT FAVOURED

STATUS OF VENEZIA GIULIA

REPORTED ATTITUDE OF FRANCE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

PARIS,'May 6. Authoritative Italian diplomatic sources stated the French Foreign Minister (M. Bidault), in an interview with the Italian Prime Minister (Signor de Gasperi), declared that he opposed a plebiscite in the disputed area of Venezia Giulia, as proposed by the United States Secretary of State (Mr James Byrnes), at the session of lhe Foreign Ministers’ Conference on May 4. . M. Bidault said that a plebiscite would take too long and would be a

departure from the Foreign Ministers’ decision in Londoh to settle the border problem on an ethnic basis alone. . The informa! meeting of the Foreign Ministers scheduled for this afternoon was postponed at the last-minute until to-morrow morning at the-request of Mr Byrnes.

Talks on the Jugoslav-Italian frontier were to have been continued, but a postponement was requested by Mr Byrnes, because he wanted more time to consider the problems raised yesterday. The postponement is considered to mean that the Foreign Ministers are consulting their governments in an effort to end the deadlock on the Italian treaty.

No decision was reached on the American proposal put forward by Mi Byrnes that a plebiscite under Allied control be taken to let the people decide whether they wished to be under Italian or Jugoslav rule.