REPLY TO RUSSIA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29008, 24 September 1959, Page 13

REPLY TO RUSSIA

British Views On Laos

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, September 22. Britain, in a Note to Russia today, said that some statements in a Soviet Note last week on Laos were “both legally and factually incorrect.”

The Note said the British Government took exception to the Soviet suggestion that Britain’s action in putting forward the resolution of the Secretary Council to set up a sub-committee on Laos was an attempt to “poison the international atmosphere at the present time.”

Britain’s Note, handed over in Moscow today, was in reply to one from the Soviet Government on September 15 proposing that a conference should be set up to consider the situation in Laos. In the Note, released tonight by the Foreign Office, the British Government said it did not propose to comment in substance on the Russian proposals at the present time. The Security Council of the United Nations was “seized of the question and had established a sub-committee to make inquiries and to report to it.” The Note said the Soviet Government was “incorrect in saying that the unanimity rule ought to apply in this case.” The appointment of the sub-committee had been made under Article 29 of the United Nations Charter, which provided that the Security Council might establish such subsidiary organs as it deemed necessary to perform its functions, the Note said.