CONFERENCE ON FORMOSA

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27603, 9 March 1955, Page 13

CONFERENCE ON FORMOSA

“Two Conditions Not Fulfilled”

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, March 8. Sir Anthony Eden said today that two conditions were necessary for a five-PowqT conference on the Far East and Formosa to be useful.

“There should be some underlying understanding about the task of the conference, and some agreement about the membership. “I do not think we are in a position to say that either of these conditions is as yet fulfilled—unfortunately,” he said.

Sir Anthony Eden, who returned to London by air today from the Bangkok conference, saia that the conference “did nothing very spectacular, but it was not intended to.” Since be left London on February 19, on a tour across three continents, he has met the leading statesmen of more than a dozen nations. The Bangkok conference had given “a firm organising structure to the Manila Treaty, and the security of the other territories in South-east Asia is more firmly based than it was before we met,*' he added. The Foreign Secretary said that at the S.E.A.T.O. conference “I welcomed in particular the chance to talk to the Foreign Ministers of Australia' and New Zealand. I was able to continue these discussions with many leading British representatives in the area when, after Bangkok, I visited Singapore and Malaya. “While I was in Bangkok I also had discussions' with Mr Dulles, the United States Secretary of State, about the Formosa situation, which were helpful to me.” ne said.