U.S. REPLY TO RUSSIA British Support On Talks

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28531, 10 March 1958, Page 9

U.S. REPLY TO RUSSIA British Support On Talks

LONDON, March 8. A Foreign Office, spokesman has said that Britain fully endorsed everything contained in the United States Note to Russia this week on the need for substantive preparations for a summit conference. He said the Note had been drafted after consultation by the United States with her allies. Asked whether he considered the Note closed the door to a summit conference, th'e spokesman said: “Most certainly not. It opens the door to a fruitful summit conference.”

At Bonn, the Federal German Government’s chief spokesman today rejected Russia’s proposal to talk about a German peace treaty at a summit conference without discussing the reunification of Germany. The spokesman said that it was not clear to him how it could be possible to discuss a peace treaty with a Germany whose territorial extent and status was not known. [The Russian theory that reunification is a matter purely between East and West Germany is rejected at Bonn.]

In his latest letter to President EisenhoWer, the Soviet Prime Minister, Marshal Bulganin, turned down American proposals that topics at a summit conference should include the situation of countries in eastern Europe and German reunification. He said: “The Soviet Union will in no case consent to interference in the internal affairs of sovereign States.”