Russia’s Secret Talks With Jugoslavs

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28347, 5 August 1957, Page 11

Russia’s Secret Talks With Jugoslavs

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, August 3. The Soviet Communist Party leader, Mr Khrushchev, and Marshal Tito, of Jugoslavia, agreed to develop Soviet-Jugoslav relations at secret talks in Rumania, the Moscow Radio said tonight. The radio said the two Communist leaders headed Government and Communist Party deleof the two countries.

In Belgrade the Jugoslav Government announcement said a meeting was held on Thursday and Friday and the party leadership and governments of both countries agreed to "work for further all-round development of relations and for the removal of obstacles hindering this development,” Moscow Radio said.

. The secrecy surrounding the meeting was an unusual factor in the series of exchanges between the ttoo countries since 1955. when Mr Khrushchev came to Belgrade to renew relations after a seven-year rift, foreign observers in Belgrade noted. It was impossible to understand from the brief official announcement how far the two Confftnunist leaders had resolved their differences.

These centred chiefly on the Jugoslav refusal to join the Moscow - dominated Socialist camp.

It is believed likely that differences still remained, but there might have been an agreement to leave this issue aside for the time being, while Mr Khrushchev engaged in reconsolidating his position after the removal of the Malenkov group. Moscow Radio said the delegations “particularly discussed questions hampering a further development of mutual relations.” They reaffirmed previous dec-

larations, in Belgrade and Moscow, for the development of friendly relations based on MarxismLeninism.

Mr Khrushchev will visit East Germany on August 7, the Moscow Radio announced tonight. The Foreign Minister. Mr Andrei Gromyko, and a First Deputy, Premier, Mr Anastas Mikoyan, will accompany him.