KOREAN WAR PRISONERS

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26745, 31 May 1952, Page 7

KOREAN WAR PRISONERS

Geneva Convention Provisions (N.Z. Press Association—Copy right) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, May 29. The United States State Department said to-night that the United Nations Command in Korea was within its legal and moral rights in insisting on non-forcible repatriation of prisoners of war in the truce negotiations with the Communists.

The comment was made in response to an inquiry on whether the United Nations position was contrary to the Geneva Convention concerning the return of prisoners of war.

The State Department said that since, in normal situations, prisoners of war would desire to be taken home, Article 116 of the Convention provided that prisoners of war should be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities. The Department said the provision was inserted in the Convention because of the practice of the Soviet Union at the end of hostilities in the Second World War of retaining prisoners.

The Convention, taken as a whole, showed, however, that it’ did not require the United Nations Command to agree to return prisoners of war who were so bitterly opposed to repatriation that it could be accomplished only by violent means, of a type condemned by the Convention.