RUSSIA CALLS FOR NEW ARMS TALKS

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28129, 19 November 1956, Page 11

RUSSIA CALLS FOR NEW ARMS TALKS

Limited Acceptance Of “Open Skies” Plan

(N.Z Press Association —Copyrtpht)

(Rec. 10 p.m.) MOSCOW, November 17. Russia today called for a summit disarmament conference of the Big Four Western Powers plus India, with limited acceptance of President Eisenhower’s “open skies” inspection plan, and a non-aggression pact between the North Atlantic Treaty Powers and the Communist Warsaw Pact Powers.

In a 13-page disarmament statement to the United States, Britain, France and India, the Soviet Government proposed aerial photography up to 500 miles on either side of the EastWest border in Europe.

This would be the region where the main forces of N.A.T.O. and the Warsaw Treaty are located.

The statement said the Soviet Government also proposed: To reduce within two years the armed forces of Russia, the United States, and China to between one and one and a half million men for each country, and to reduce the armed forces of Britain and France to 650,000 men for each country. To ban hydrogen and atom bombs, their production and use, and to destroy all stock, with an immediate ban on tests. To cut by one-third in 1957 the existing Soviet, French, American, and British forces in Germany. To liquidate within two years military bases in all foreign countries. To cut military expenditure. The establishment of strict international control to ensure that these proposals are carried out. Danger of War The statement said the military operations undertaken against Egypt were fraught with the danger of an “extension of the conflict” involving the use of modern weapons. It said Britain’s operations in Egypt had led not only to a weakening of Britain’s political position in Europe, but also of her military strategic position on the Continent.

The situation in Egypt had also led to a revival of the cold war, the intensification of the armaments race, and the spreading of a war hysteria, it said.

All international problems could be solved by peaceful means. As far as the ideological struggle was concerned, the superior ideology must emerge victorious without recourse to arms. The statement proposed that the heads of the United States, Russia, Britain, and France should accept the Swiss invitation for a disarmament conference; A successful outcome of this conference could pave the way to a broader conference in which the heads of NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Governments could take part, it said. ’ “The Soviet Government deems it desirable to incorporate in this wide conference States such as China, India, Jugoslavia, Burma, and Indonesia, who are not members Of NATO, the Bagdad Pact or the Warsaw Pact,” the statement said.

A six-point disarmament plan, aiming at the reduction of the world’s armies to a point where they would be sufficient only for internal duty and controlling frontiers, should be devised, it said. In the first year* of the progressive two-year cut of armed forces, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States would reduce to 2.500,000 men and Britain and France to 750,000. . It called for the establishment of international control posts at key points such as airports, ports, and railway stations, to avert the possibility of a sudden attack or dangerous concentration of forces.