DEPUTIES’ TALKS

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26396, 14 April 1951, Page 7

DEPUTIES’ TALKS

Reported Effort To Break Deadlock (New Zealand Pjese Awociation) (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, April IS. Sir Ivo Mallet, assistant to the British deputy (Mr Ernest Davies), is scheduled to return to London this morning from the Paris conference of the Big Four Foreign Ministers* deputies. Observers believe that Sir Ivo Mallet’s return is part of a concerted Western move to break the deadlock in negotiations for the Foreign Ministers’ agenda. Sir Ivo Mallet will confer with the Foreign Secretary (Mr Herbert Morrison) while he is in London.

The Western deputies are expected to meet early to-day to consider ch efly the failure of the Soviet Deputy (Mr Andrei Gromyko) to take up the suggestion that the Ministers, at their proposed meetings, should deal with problems under general headings, instead of a list of particular items. Observers think that Mr Gromyko is stalling because he is waiting for the West to make the next move, and because he has not yet received precise instructions from Moscow on the suggestion for an agenda with general headings. * A Western spokesman said last night that Mr Gromyko delivered a long, rambling, abusive speech when the Western deputies asked him to reply to their latest suggestions for the agenda. Mr Gromyko’s speech did nothing to help progress. The Western deputies suggested again that the agenda should be drafted with the general headings as proposed by Dr. Philip Jessup (United States). The Western spokesman said that Mr Gromyko “spurned the offer of serious negotiations.” Mr Davies said that under the present Soviet agenda the question of Trieste could be raised five times and the North Atlantic Treaty three times. Mr Gromyko said that the last two days had shown that the West had not put forward any concrete proposals, while the Soviet delegation nad made concrete, practical suggestions.