"Basis Reached” For Nuclear Test Ban

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28896, 16 May 1959, Page 13

"Basis Reached” For Nuclear Test Ban

(AZ fr’ress Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) GENEVA, May 15. The Soviet Foreign Minister, Mr Andrei Gromyko, told his Western colleagues at Geneva yesterday that the Soviet Union considered a basis had already been reached “for achieving an agreement to end nuclear weapons tests for all time,” a Soviet spokesman said. Mr Gromyko said recent correspondence between Mr Khrushchev, President Eisenhower and Mr Macmillan, had shown that a basis for agreement had been reached. The United States, British and Soviet Foreign Ministers met informally to discuss the banning of nuclear weapon tests and talked abdut the possibility of reconvening meetings of scientists for expert discussions on the latest technical data on the detection of tests and control and inspection.

The three-Power talks at Geneva on the banning of tests adjourned earlier this week until June 8 because of the Foreign Ministers’ conference. A recess, it was stated, would be extremely useful to both sides. The last session of the conference had made considerable progress and time for study was now necessary. The conference is about threequarters of the way through a treaty banning nuclear tests. The three Foreign Ministers confirmed that the three-Power nuclear negotiations would resume on June 8.