SPAIN AND N.A.T.O.

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28987, 31 August 1959, Page 11

SPAIN AND N.A.T.O.

Admission Not

Sought

(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 29. The Spanish Foreign Minister, Mr Fernando Maria Castiella, arrived by air today from Madrid for talks on Monday with Presi dent Eisenhower. He will call on the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Selwyn Lloyd, on Tuesday. * This will be the first bilateral meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Britain and Spain since the end of the war.

Mr Castiella is visiting Britain as the result of an invitation from President Eisenhower.

On his arrival at London airport, Mr Castiella said he was not coming to seek the admission of Spain to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. He said: “We are here, because of our absence from N.A.T.0., to examine matters of common interest with the United States.”

A statement issued later by the Labour Party secretary, Mr Morgan Phillips, on behalf of the national executive of the Labour Party, called on the British Government to “make it clear that it will oppose Spain’s admission to N.A.T.O. “It is essential that Britain should remain true to her principles and safeguard the democratic nature of the Western alliance in which Franco Spain can never have a place,” the statement added.