BRITISH REGRET EXPRESSED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25242, 22 July 1947, Page 7

BRITISH REGRET EXPRESSED

MEDIATION OFFER RENEWED ’

STATEMENT ISSUED BY FOREIGN OFFICE LONDON, July 20. The British Foreign Office, in a statement ch the Indonesian situation, said that the British Government, in full consultation with the United States, had previously made it plain to the Netherlands Government that “Britain was ready to place its good offices at the disposal of both parties.” This offer was now renewed. The Foreign Office statement added that it was with the keenest disappointment that the British Government saw the breakdown of the Netherlands Government’s ceaseless efforts during the last 18 months to promote a settlement of the “exceptionally difficult situation which has persisted in Java since the Japanese surrender.” The statement recalled how the British political adviser (Mr M. E. Dening) in December, 1945, and later Lord Inverchapel (then Sir Archibald ClarkKerr) interceded in an endeavour to get a peaceful settlement and also how Lord Killearn participated in-the negotiations which produced the Cherjbon agreement. The principal outstanding point of dispute in the Cheribon agreement had been the establishment of a joint Netherlands-Indonesian gendarmerie for restoring order, the statement said. The British Government had suggested the possibility of the appointment of a police commissioner from a neutral country, but the suggestion had not proved acceptable. So far as is known there are no British subjects in the interior of Java.