POLICY IN MIDDLE EAST

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26633, 19 January 1952, Page 7

POLICY IN MIDDLE EAST

Britain's power to influence the fortunes of the Middle East and guard it from aggression was far less today now’ that she had laid aside the responsibility for India. The Suez Canal had now- become an international rather than a national responsibility. Mr Churchill said he welcomed the four-Pow’er approach to Egypt for the protection of the world interests involved in the canal. Britain was not seeking to be master of Egypt, but in the Canal Zone only to protect the world’s commerce. Britain could not bear the whole burden of the Suez Canal. Mr Churchill said that Britain was maintaining more than 50.000 troops in the Suez Canal Zone who might well be employed elsewhere, not for national vainglory or self-seeking advantage. but in the common interest of all nations. “It would enormously aid us in our task if even token forces of the other partners were stationed in the Canal Zone as a symbol of the unity of purpose which inspires us. I believe it is no exaggeration to state that such token forces would probably bring into harmony all that movement by which the four-Power policy w’ould be made to play a decisive part, by peaceful measures, to bring to an end the wide disorders of the Middle East, in which, let me assure you. there lurks danger no less than that which the United States stemmed in Korea.” Mr Churchill said that President Truman’s action in taking the initiative in Korea produced consequences which might well affect the destiny of mankind. The consequent rearmament of the United States, and the British Commonwealth and a united Europe had already altered the balance of world power, and might avoid the danger of a third world war.

The Prime Minister congratulated Congress on the policy which had brought the Japanese nation from “shame and defeat” into association with the Western democracies. This association would ensure stability in the Far East, he said. He was sceptical, Mr Churchill said, of the view held in Washington during the war that China would become one of the four big nations. It was now admitted that this had not come about, but he was by no means convinced that China would remain for generations in the Communist grip. Britain and the United States were agreed that if the Korean truce negotiations were not successful, their joint response would be blunt, resolute, and effective. Mr Churchill said. The truce would be ineffective if it led only to the transference of aggression to other fields. Mr Churchill said he welcomed the patience of the United States in the Korean armistice negotiations. What he had learned since he came to the United States had convinced him that the British and American policy in the Far East would be marked by increasing harmony. British and American problems in South-east Asia would not oe solved unless they were acted on as a whole. “You have rightly been resolute in confronting the Chinese Communist aggression in Korea,” said Mr Churchill. “We take our stand at your side” (applause and cheers). “We are grateful to the United States for bearing nine-tenths or more of the burden in Korea which the United Nations have morally assumed. I am very glad that whatever diplomatic divergencies there may be from time to time about procedure, you do not allow the Chinese anti-Communists on Formosa to be invaded and massacred from the mainland.”