JUGOSLAVIA AND BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25998, 29 December 1949, Page 5

JUGOSLAVIA AND BRITAIN

TRADE AGREEMENT WELCOMED EASING OF DIFFICULTIES CAUSED BY COMINFORM ’ (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7.40 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 28. The Belgrade correspondent of “The Times” says that the new BritishJugoslav trade agreement, which took 10 months to negotiate, is warmly welcomed in London as helping Jugoslavia to overcome some of the difficulties caused by the Cominform’s economic blockade. This has denied Jugoslavia machinery, spare parts, and industrial raw materials required not only for Marshal Tito’s ambitious five-year industrialisation plan but also to maintain existing levels of production and keep the country’s dilapidated transport system going. Many of these things will now come from Britain.

The agreement is also seen in London as a measure of the confidence which the British Government feels in the survival of Marshal Tito in the face of the Soviet’s attempts to unseat him.

In Belgrade yesterday the Jugoslav Foreign Minister (Mr Edvard Kardelj) hailed Jugoslavia’s “improved” relations with the West and denounced the Cominform campaign against the Tito Government as designed “to destroy our independence and to subordinate us.”

He spoke before a joint session ol Parliament in one of the clearest addresses yet delivered, weighing Jugoslavia’s delicate position between the East and the West.

He emphasised repeatedly that Jugoslavia would avoid choosing sides in any dispute between the two. Mr Kardelj, who was reviewing Jugoslavia’s foreign policy during the year, said that increased trade relations and loans with the West were making Jugoslavia “stronger economically and politically.” Referring to the Cominform dispute, he said that Jugoslavia was “prepared to come to an agreement, but only on a basis of mutual respect and equality.” Discussing the trade agreement with Britain, he said it had been reached on the basis of complete economic reciprocity.