RUSSIAN DESIRE FOR MEETING

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26441, 7 June 1951, Page 7

RUSSIAN DESIRE FOR MEETING

DOUBTS EXPRESSED IN PRESS COMMENT LONDON, June 5. The Western Powers are to reply officially on Wednesday to the Notes handed to the Western Deputies in Paris by Mr Gromyko British newspapers are, naturally, fairly cautious in their comment on the Russian announcement that the Soviet desires a meeting of the Foreign Ministers to be called as rapidly as possible on condition that the Atlantic Pact and American military bases in Europe be included in the agenda. At the same time there is a tendency to inquire whether the Soviet Government, which first suggested the Foreign Ministers' Conference, now wishes to see the Ministers meet. There is also a luggestion that if no meeting is held there might arise a danger to world peace. The "Manchester Guardian,’ in a leading article, says that the Russian!, in effect, now decline to attend a meeting unless the agenda includes a subject which they had never proposed until a month ago. ’ German demilitarisation and other German questions which they previously wanted to discuss have, in some mysterious way, ceased Io be the essential reason for international tension in Europe. This leaves much doubt whether the Soviet genuinely wishes a meeting. . “The shifts and turns in the Kremlin’s attitude to the agenda suggest that Its real interest now is only propaganda, though the Russian reply carefully refrains from actually refusing a meeting, and hopes, no doubt, to leave the odium of doing so to the West “This is the real trap: that we shall seem to be preventing a meeting by refusing a small concession on the agenda. It is a more dangerous trap than the one the Western delegates pretend to fear—that they will in some way. be committing themselves to negotiation with the Russians on a revision of the Atlantic Treaty. “There can be no small doubt that if no agenda is agreed that, in itself, will increase international tension. Tn® possibility that there will be a meeting of the Foreign Ministers has exercised a calming influence in the last six months. .. “Once it was clear that there would be no meeting decisions would have to be taken which could have deadly consequences. Failure to hold the Foreign Ministers’ conference could be one of the vital sparks which start a fire." Rearming West Germany The “Yorkshire Post” says: "The idea of the conference was first put forward by the Russians—of that there can be very little doubt—because they wanted to prevent the rearmament Of Western Germany. "The Western Powers for their part have dropped this plan for the time being, though the decision had nothing to do with anything said or done in Paris; but once the decision was reached one of the main points at issue at the conference had vanished. “There are developments to show that the Russians are supremely anxious not to have Western Germany arrayed against them and that the Western Powers have come to understand that Western Germany might become a rather expensive and exacting ally. This fact might be concentrated upon by the delegates whehthey meet again in Paris.” The diplomatic correspondent of the “Glasgow Herald” says: “The assumption that Russia still does want a conference is losing ground. It it now suspected that, finding the front against her too solid to be broken in a conference at a superior level, the no longer wants one and now seeks no more than securing an alibi for the failure. “Wants Her Hands Free" “The impression is gaining ground , that she seeks to have ner hands free ' for something which she would find it difficult to undertake were 4he actually engaged in high-level discussions and that there is therefore little hope now of a conference—and even ! less hope that if one could assemble, as a result of verbal concessions on one or other side, It still would have i any result. i "Russian intransigence, it may be : noted, is not encouraging for those i who think that a Korean peace is pos- < «ible. Optimists persist in their op--1 timism, but it is difficult not to agree i with General Ridgway, who says ■ simply that the enemy cannot make peace. There is some reason to think i that this inability presumed in Asia s weighs just as heavily on Russia fc r Europe."