Big Powers Claimed To Be Closer In Arms Talks

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27491, 27 October 1954, Page 11

Big Powers Claimed To Be Closer In Arms Talks

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) NEW YORK, October 25. Mr Andrei Vyshinsky, the Soviet delegate to the United Nations, said today that the positions of the Soviet Union and the West in regard to the stages of a disarmament plan were now very close together. Speaking in the Political Committee’s debate, he said that in the past there had been considerable divergence in this respect, but this particular divergence had now been written off. “The Soviet Union has accepted the stages as put forward by the Western Powers,” he said. Mr Vyshinsky again declared that the Soviet proposals which he introduced on September 30 were based on the British and French plan put forward .in London earlier this year.

He criticised those who had emphasised the points that divided rather than the points at which the West and the Soviet Union coincided.

Mr Vyshinsky said that even these critics were unable to withstand the impact of facts. For instance, he added, Sir Percy Spender, the Australian delegate, had shown this when he said the objectives of the two plans were so much alike that they might be regarded as agreed upon. Mr Vyshinsky said that both the British and French and the Soviet proposals made it clear that the main task was the reduction of armaments and prohibition of atomic weapons. The paramount principle in the reduction of conventional armaments

was the necessity of specific and agreed standards for reduction. Britain had asked whether the Soviet Government accepted that there must be agreement as to th? nature and powers of the control organ before countries began to carry out the agreed disarmament programme. Mr Vyshinsky said that all these questions must be carried out in advance of an international convention.

Britain had also asked if the Soviet Government agreed that the control officials should be in position and ready to function before the countries concerned began to carry out the disarmament programme.

Mr Vyshinsky said this question depended upon an agreement which would be written into the international convention, adding: “Our position is clear on Britain had maintained that the control organ should be able to take enforcement measures in the case of violations.

Mr Vyshinsky said that here the Soviet disagreed in principle because the control organ would be promoted from a control body to a political one. Enforcement would frequently involve political questions. The United Nations Charter, he said, gave the right to impose enforcement to the Security Council. To give the control organ the right to take sanctions would distort the nature of the relationship which must prevail between it and the Security Council. Evatt Proposal Recalled At one point Mr Vyshinsky said that m 1946 Dr. H. V. Evatt, then the Australian representative on the Atomic Energy Commission, had presented the commission’s preliminary proposals to a United Nations sub-committee. That document, Mr Vyshinsky said, said that in order to inquire into the possibility of submitting recommendations, which would cover all the major aspects of the problem of disarmament, certain major principles had to be examined. They were: (1) A single international instrument should be set up for the control of atomic energy. (2) The organ should be vested with “broad discretionary powers.” (3) It would contain an obligation not to use atomic energy for warlike ends.

“This was an important document,” Mr Vyshinsky said, “because it called for a single international instrument which would cover all aspects of the problem.” He said that the majority of the sub-committee supported that document.

“It made it clear that the majority favoured a single international act which assumed simultaneity,” Mr Vyshinsky said. That had been the position of the Australian delegation then, he said, “and I regret that the Australian representative here has now circumvented that position,” he added.