NO PROGRESS AT KAESONG

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26491, 4 August 1951, Page 7

NO PROGRESS AT KAESONG

Dispute Over Buffer Zone Continues (NJ. Preu Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11.50 p.m.) SEOUL, August 3. No progress was made at the cease-fire talks at Kaesong to-day, but the delegates will meet again to-morrow. A United Nations communique to-day said the United Nations delegates maintained their attitude on the question of a buffer zone in Korea, on which the conference is at a deadlock. In a brief opening statement, Admiral Turner Joy, the chief United Nations delegate, emphasised that the United Nations Command would not relinquish its present military defensive positions to satisfy political desires to subdivide Korea. * The senior Communist delegate then spoke for nearly two hours in an attempt to justify his previously expressed view that the military demarcation line should be fixed along a parallel of latitude, rather than to follow significant features of the terrain which would be militarily important to the security of the United Nations forces.

m me closing statement oi me uay, Admiral Joy posed several searching questions in an effort to establish the general attitude of the Communist delegation towards a truly military armistice and the resultant cease-fire. The Peking radio said last night that the Communist cease-fire delegation had flatly rejected the United Nations proposal for a buffer zone north of the 38th parallel. According to the radio. General Nam 11, the chief Communist delegate, told the United Nations delegates that their insistence on a truce line north of the parallel was “unfair and unreasonable.” He added: “We cannot accept such a proposal. If there can be no peaceful solution to this question, the other questions will, in no circumstances, be accepted.” General Nam II said the United Nations opposed the 38th parallel as a demarcation line because the Allied forces had strong air and naval strength. “They propose to have a line within our lines. This proposal is unfavourable to our military situation, and against good reason,” he added. London Comment According to a London message, the ‘'Daily Telegraph,” in a leading article, urged to-dav that the Kaesong talks should be broken oft if the Peking radio had correctly reported the Communist delegation’s views on the United Nations’ buffer zone proposal. “It is unthinkable that the Allies would concede in talks what they would never have conceded in battle," said the newspaper. “Our genuine desire for peace has been amply testified by the fact that we were willing to halt our troops in the midst of a victorious offensive to start talking, but the Communists’ motives in suggesting an armistice must now be highly suspect. "Whether the report that the enemy is using the lull to build up his forces is confirmed or not, the United Nations cannot run the risk of facilitating the consequences which might follow such a build-up. We did not start the talks to reach some temporary respite from which all the trouble might begin over again.”