GENEVA PACT

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28999, 14 September 1959, Page 9

GENEVA PACT

Soviet Call For Observance (N.Z. Press Associattnn—CopyrtgM) MOSCOW, September 10. The Soviet Government newspaper “Izvestia” today called for observance of the Geneva agreements and a resumption of the work of the International Commission as “the high road leading to peace in Laos,” the Soviet news agency Tass reported. In Peking the Chinese “People’s Daily” today accused the United States of “usurping the flag of the United Nations to engineer a new conspiracy of interference in Laos.”

The newspaper referred to the United Nations fact-finding commission to visit Laos and a planned meeting of the SouthEast Asia Treaty Organisation and added: “All this shows that the United States it bent on extending the civil war in Laos and making the Laotian situation more complicated and dangerous. . . .” Marshan Chen Yi, speaking at a Bulgarian Embassy reception in Peking, said China agreed with the announcement by the North Vietnam Government that it regarded the United Nations Security Council resolution to set up a “fact-finding commission” to investigate the Laotian situation as illegal. “The question in Laos is that the Laotian authorities should correctly implement the Geneva and Vientiane agreements. It is a question which the United Nations has no right whatsoever to look into.” Marshal Chen said: “We hold that the United States must withdraw its military personnel from Laos and abolish its military bases there.”