Long Stay Forecast For U.K. Troops

Press, Volume C, Issue 29563, 12 July 1961, Page 15

Long Stay Forecast For U.K. Troops

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, July 11. A long stay in Kuwait for British troops is forecast by the Middle East correspondent of “The Times,” London, after the deadlock in the Security Council.

There is not much hope .n Bahrein, he says, that a new move towards reconciling Kuwait and Iraq will be devised at the United Nations, because Russia's veto of Britain’s resolution that Kuwait’s independence should be respected seems to signify that she is bent on calculated fishing in new muddy waters. An Arab solution devised and executed only by Arabs is the obvious alternative, but again the promise of this is poor. The Secretary-General of the Arab League did not apparently make much headway in his visits to Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia last week. It is reasoned that when representatives of the Arab League meet in Cairo this week, the United Arab Republic will try to find a way acceptable to all of getting British troops out. But this would have to be acceptable to Britain as well as to the Arab States, including Kuwait, which is not a member of the League. Europeans sum up the position by saying “Britain is left holding the baby,” as

it is necessary for some protection to remain in Kuwait so long as there is no alternative which reassures the ruler.

They remark wryly that Britain’s best ‘‘fire brigade” force is now locked up in the desert. Next Move

In Bagdad this week, the anniversary of the revolution of July 14, 1958, will be celebrated and in that respect the next move lies with the Prime - Minister (Major General Kassim).

He will have plenty of opportunity to make pronouncements, though the character of the occasion does not give much hope that he will open the door to conciliation, and many people are speculating whether he will launch some anti-British move. The talk is of Kaseim’s nationalising properties of the Iraq Petroleum Company and its two associates in which Britain has strong interests and with which he is already in dispute. No particular evidence is known that he intends to do this; but it seems a course he could be contemplating. He would, however, have to weigh the profit of such a resounding nationalistic gesture arainst the difficulties he would then have in selling his oil.

Tribal Raids In Ethiopia IN.Z.P.A -Reuter—Copyngfit) NAIROBI, July 11 Police outposts have been alerted along a 170-mile section of the Kenya border with Ethiopia after clashes between Ethiopian police and tribesmen in which 45 persons are reported to have been killed. A report from the British Consulate at Mega. 50 miles across the border, said tribesmen armed with rifles had been attacking villages near Goru

The Governor has appealed to Addis Ababa for reinforcements because further outbreaks are expected, the British United Press said.