ALLIANCE FOR SOUTH ASIA

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27425, 11 August 1954, Page 11

ALLIANCE FOR SOUTH ASIA

Conference Likely Next Month

(Rec . 12.10 a.m.) WASHINGTON, August 10 . t ° fl^! a ! S nd V n I f% nOW h< ? ping to be able to announce before the end of this week agreement to hold an international conference on the proposed South-east Asian defence pact, Reuter s diplomatic correspondent reported today. Final decisions had not yet been made, he added, but it WHS expected that the Foreign Ministers, or their deputies, of the United States, Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, n?E and P° ss . lb, y Pakistan would meet in the Far Bast, probably at Baguio, in the Philippines, in midSeptember.

The mid-September date had been put fpr W ard because the , M,nlsters “ the Pacific-Asian area could then attend the Baguio conference on their way to New York for the opening of the 1954 session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 21.

Present indications were that Pakistan would be the only one of the Colombo Powers represented at the conference. Pakistan was, at the same time, expected to make it clear that its attendance at the conference did not commit it in advance to joining a South-east Asian defence pact if such a pact should emerge from the conference.