big four open talks IN PARIS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25812, 25 May 1949, Page 5

big four open talks IN PARIS

Ministers Agree On Agenda BONN ASSEMBLY PROCLAIMS REPUBLIC fN.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p m.) LONDON, May 24. The Council of Foreign Ministers will meet this afternoon ! continue the work it began in Paris yesterday. In a session yesterday of two hours and a half the four Ministers agreed on | an agenda. ' / The effect of yesterday’s discussions, says a special cor- ; respondent of “ The Times ” in Paris, is that the Council be- f gins where the London meeting of 1947 left off—that is to say, on the complex of political and economic questions involved in , the reunification of Germany. Correspondents say that the Ministers agreed on the follow-' jng four-point agenda: (1) problems of German unity, includ- i jng economic and political principles‘and four-Power control; (2) Berlin, including the currency question; (3) the preparation of 8 peace treaty for Germany; (4) the preparation of an Austrian treat?' of independence. The Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Vyshinsky) expressed a desire to include the question of four-Power control in. Germany as a separate item. He agreed, however, that the subject should be wrapped up in the first item on the agenda. The Ministers agreed that the sessions of the deputies should be entirely secret. They decided that certain restricted sessions which they themselves would have should be secret,, and that only agreed communiques should be released for publication. Each delegation will present its version of what goes on at the plenary sessions. The meeting began soon after the German Constituent Assembly in Bonn had officially proclaimed a Federal. Republic of West Germany, for which a government and Parliament will be elected within the next three months.

RUSSIAN PROPOSAL ON JAPAN

Mr Vyshinsky, whose mood appeared strikingly conciliatory, threw in a surprise suggestion at the Council of Foreign Ministers yesterday. He said he thought the time was ripe for a meeting of the Council (with China replacing France) to conrider the preparation of a Japanese peace treaty.

Both Mr Dean Acheson (United States) and Mr Ernest Bevin (Britain) immediately opposed the suggestion. They said that the council was not the correct body to deal with the question.

The French Foreign Minister (Mr Robert Schuman), who was in the chair, said he did not think the suggestion made by Mr Vyshinsky* called for an immediate decision. Mr Vyshinsky agreed. Replying to Mr Vyshinsky’s suggestion for a Japanese peace treaty, Mr Acheson said that the Far Eastern Commission existed for inter-AUied discussion of the Japanese question, and it was not the business of the Council of Foreign Ministers to deal with Japan. He was, however, prepared to discuss Mr Vyshinsky’s question later. Mr Bevin, agreeing with Mr Acheson. said that the Commonwealth Powers—Australia, New Zealand, India. Pakistan, Ceylon, and Canada—were concerned with the question, and had a right to participate in its discussion.

Mr Vyshinsky said thqit he did not propose that this question should be put on the agenda of the Paris meeting, but it was appropriate to see what .problems might lie ahead for future meetings. / Replying to Mr Bevis’s reference to the Commonwealth cliaim to participate in the discussions, Mr Vyshinsky said that naturally 'these countries should take part in preparing the Japanese peace treaty, but not in the preliminary phase, which would consist of a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers with the participation of China. “The Russian move ’in Paris calling for an early peace treaty with Japan is viewed by sources close to General MacArthur as a design to get General MacArthur out of Japan,” says the Tokyo correspondent of the United Press. “The sources said that they had expected the Russian move because General MacArthur is the biggest obstacle to Communist expansion in the Far East. They admitted that the Russian move placed the Western Powers on the spot with the Japanese people at a time when Cr.nmunism was making gains elsewhere in Asia.” Reuter’s Tokyo correspondent says that the Japanese Prime Minister (Mr Yoshida) told the Diet that he thought that a Japanese peace treaty would come unexpectedly soon. Mr Yoshida said that the world desired a return to normal, and feeling abroad towards Japan had improved considerably lately.

CONDITIONS OF GERMAN UNITY

The special correspondent of “The Times” in Paris says: “There is still no hint from the Russians as to what proposals Mr Vyshinsky has to make, but an article in the Moscow newspaper ‘Pravda’ is being interpreted as TO advance warning of an important disagreement. “fte Soviet Union, the article indicates, has in mind that the four Powers should begin work from the beginning on the conditions of German unity. That amounts to a proposal that the arrangements made by the Bonn Council on behalf of 45,000.000 Germans and with the approval of the Western Powers should be reopened. The Western Powers are committed, as is the Soviet Union, to a united Germany, but on the basis of democratic liberties, and they could not agree to a procedure which might prejudice the progress already made in that direction in the Western zones.

“General Marshall, at the London meeting of the Council, defined sucdntly the political and economic conditions which had to be created be-

fore a central German Government could work effectively. These were the organisation of political life in both the Eastern ana Western zones pn the basis of the basic freedoms of the individual; the abolition of zonal boundaries (except as delimiting the occupation areas) with no hindrance to the free flow of persons ideas, and goods throughout the whole of Germany: and the clear determination of the economic burdens which Germany has to bear.

“In addition, said General Marshall, the four Powers must determine the relationship of Allied control to the German Government, and the Conditions they all deemed necessary to assure Europe’s security against any future German aggression. “In the absence of Soviet co operation, the Western Powers have found the answers to all th~se questions in the Bonn Constitution and the ch”in of three-Power agreements concluded in Washington. It is on these that they propose to take their stand at this meeting.’’