Britain Agrees To Summit Timetable

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29051, 13 November 1959, Page 13

Britain Agrees To Summit Timetable

(Rec. 11.30 p.m.) PARIS, November 12. The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Selwyn Lloyd, has accepted French plans for a second Western summit meeting some time in April and for an EastWest summit meeting at the end of April or the beginning of May.

This was disclosed today as talks between Mr Lloyd and the French Foreign Minister, Mr Maurice Couve de Murville, o» British-French relations continued. Africa will be the main subject of today’s talks. A French Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the talks between the French and British Foreign Ministers got off to "an excellent start.”

An exchange of views would take place today, he said, on relations between the six-nation Common Market and the “outer seven” trade area led by Britain. The main purpose of the talks

is to re-establish confidence on both sides for co-operation on world problems, particularly in view of the coming international meetings leading up to an EastWest summit conference. The time-table for these meetings has been largely predetermined by the date of the visit of the Soviet Prime Minister (Mr Khrushchev), to France, which

will occupy the last two weeks of March.

Russia finally determined the date of Mr Krushchev’s visit, but the French Government offered him the choice of any time between February 20 and the end of March. The reasons for the Soviet Government’s selection were not disclosed in Paris. Mr Couve de Murville said that “Anglo-French solidarity remains profound and there is no reason why it should not be translated into the harmonisation of our policies.” France was particularly touched by the solidarity of the British Government with France in the “difficult debate” going on in the United Nations (on France’s coming A-bomb test in the Sahara).