Prime Ministers Examine Middle East Problems

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28008, 30 June 1956, Page 9

Prime Ministers Examine Middle East Problems

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, June 29. The Commonwealth Prime Ministers, on the third day of their London Conference, today began a searching examination of the problems of the Middle East, where the Arab nations are being wooed with Communist arms supplies and promises of Soviet economic aid. The issues before the nine statesmen range from the dangerous Arab-Israel conflict to the implications of the recent visits of Russia’s new Foreign Minister (Mr Dmitri Shepilov) to Cairo, Damascus and Beirut, the conference sources said. Sir Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister, and his Colonial Secretary (Mr Alan Lennox-Boyd) had ready for the meeting a detailed brief of the latest situation in Cyprus where there is a Greek-Cypriot terrorist campaign for union with Greece.

At the afternoon session the Prime Ministers were expected to turn to European questions. Discussion on this, according to conference sources, covers the problem of German reunification, European security and disarmament.

The Commonwealth leaders yesterday analysed Russia’s new trade offensive and spoke of the need for the nonCommunist world to speed up aid to under-developed areas before the Soviet drive gathers momentum.

The Prime Ministers will continue their discussion on the recent changes in the Soviet Union next Wednesday. Before then they will have dealt with future relations with Communist China, the sterling area, financial and trading problems, and the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The Prime Ministers of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. South Africa. India, Pakistan. Ceylon and the Rhodesia-Nysaland Federation will end their conference on July 6 when they will issue a communique.

On the second day of the conference the Prime Ministers analysed the aims of Russia’s leaders. Conference sources said that Sir Anthony Eden told his Commonwealth colleagues of the projected visit of a Soviet trade mission to London, arising from his recent talks in London with Marshal Bulganin and Mr Khrushchev.

The view was expressed that in the new battle for “competitive coexistence” Russia started with an advantage over the non-Communist world in being able to switch quickly from arms production to peaceful exports without having to explain its policies to the people. The Prime Ministers discussed the need to accelerate aid to the underdeveloped areas of the world before Russia gets under way With its ne A w economic offensive.

The statesmen studied the implications of Russia’s drive to become an industrial giant able to pump food, machinery, and Communist influence into industrially-backward nations. Commonwealth sources said that some of the Prime Ministers urged that if the Western democracies were to win the new “peaceful battle,” the tempo and volume of aid from the non-Communist world must be accelerated.

It would be a relentless economic fight, they said.