BALKANS BORDER COMMISSION

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25250, 31 July 1947, Page 7

BALKANS BORDER COMMISSION

Russia Vetoes U.S. Proposal

POWER INVOKED FOR ELEVENTH TIME

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.45 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 29. Russia vetoed the United States proposal to maintain a Balkans border commission when a vote was taken in the Security Council to-day after a debate which had occupied most of the council’s time for more than one month. It was the eleventh occasion on which Russia had invoked the veto power. The voting on the long United States resolution for establishing a commission was nine to two, Poland being Russia’s only supporter. Russia had abstained from voting in the previous ballots, in which the resolution was voted on paragraph by paragraph. Immediately after the Russian veto, Mr Herschel Johnson (United States) declared that a grave situation had been created, and moved the immediate adjournment of the council to enable delegates to consult their Governments. The motion was carried, and tlje council will meet again to-morrow.

In the earlier ballots on the details of the resolution, Poland was the only country consistently voting negatively. The Russian delegate (Mr Gromyko) neither spoke nor voted, and each peragraph was carried by large majorities. It was not until the «final vote on the resolution as a whole that the Soviet attitude was known. Britain’s deputy delegate (Mr V. G. Lawford) said that the veto was the logical result of what the Soviet Union had been doing all along in the Greek case.

Mr Johnson described to-day’s veto as “a simple abuse of power,” and added that the United States would immediately renew its fight regarding the Balkan disorders; The Security Council still has before it the Soviet resolution requiring both the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Greece and United Nations* i supervision of <ll aid to Greece, and calling on Greece, Jugoslavia, Bulgaria. and Albania to settle their differences.