SOVIET REQUEST FOR BALKANS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24883, 24 May 1946, Page 7

SOVIET REQUEST FOR BALKANS

Relaxing Allied Control

U.S. POLICY ON DANUBE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) , WASHINGTON, May 23. The United States Secretary of State (Mr James Byrnes) agreed with Mr Molotov to revise the armistice terms imposed on the former German satellite countries in the Balkans, provided the revisions were in line with those worked out for Italy. 'Die United States State Department saia that the new Balkan terms would give greater freedopi of action for Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Diplomatic observers suggest that Britain does not see eye to eye with the Americans on the Balkans armislice revision, because she fears that the new terms will lessen British and American authority in the Balkans and remove all checks on Russian authority in those countries. “It is authoritatively learned in London that Mr Molotov, during the Foreign Ministers’ conference in Paris, proposed the abolition of the Allied control councils in Bulgaria, Rumania, and Hungary,” says the Press Association. “Mr Molotov based his proposal on the fact that the Italian Control Council had been abolished. x “No official comment on the reaction to the proposal is’ available in London.” A United States State Department official, linking the American raid on Hungarian naval vessels with the United States policy envisaging the Danube as an internationally free waterway, said: “Unless the Great Powers agree to free navigation of the Danube we are not releasing the boats.” This is reported by Reuter’s Frankfurt correspondent. The official added that,the Russians had been publicly -accusing the Americans of obstructing the rehabilitation of the Balkans by forbidding Danube boats to leave their anchorage for a year, but the Americans were tired of giving something without getting something substantial in return. “A free Danube would make one channel of entry behind the iron curtain, and while the Russians have the river we have the bulk of the Danubian tonnage,” he said. The Russians had prompted the Jugoslavs, Rumanians. Bulgars, and Hungarians to ask for the release of the boats. The United States was vitally interested and would raise the matter when the Foreign Ministers resumed their meetings. Brigadier-General E. L. Seibert, head of the United States Army Intelligence. on whose advice the Danube raid was ordered, said the raid might prove tremendously important. He hinted that the boats were the controlling centre of a most widespread network of crime and intrigue, possibly, involving members of the United States Army. Two more days were required to tabulate the results. The chairman of the United States Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee (Senator Tom Connally) told the Senate that all the nations which fought on the Allied side should write the peace treaties, not the Foreign Ministers of the four big Powers. He added that he was protesting against the four Ministers writing a peace treaty, submitting it to the Peace Conference, and when it came back to them permitting one of the Ministers veto it if he did not like the terms.