Sukarno Starts On Peace Endeavours

Press, Volume C, Issue 29621, 18 September 1961, Page 17

Sukarno Starts On Peace Endeavours

(H,Z Press Association —Copyright) NEW YORK, September 15. The President of Indonesia, Dr. Sukarno, yesterday launched a programme of personal diplomacy in an effort to heal the wideningbreach between the Communist and Western blocs.

Dr. Sukarno, who was one of the main figures in. the recent conference of nonaligned nations in Belgrade. Jugoslavia, told reporters in New York yesterday of his “peace" plan. United Press International reported. The first move in the plan was a conference with the Soviet Prime Minister (Mr Khrushchev), by the Indonesian Foreign Minister (Dr. Subandrio). who would leave New York today for Moscow, Dr. Sukarno said. Dr. Subandrio would stay in Moscow only a day or two and would then fly to Tokyo, where he would report to Dr. Sukarno on Tuesday during the Indonesian President's visit to Japan. Dr. Sukarno described his Foreign Minister's flight as “in the common interests of peace.” Dr. Sukarno, who met President Kennedy on Wednesday. made his peace plan announcement after meeting with the United States chief delegate to the United Nations (Mr Adlai Stevenson). He said that in sending Dr. Subandrio to Moscow he was acting as President of the Republic of Indonesia and not as an emissary of the Belgrade conference of nonaligned States. Dr. Sukarno made his decision to undertake another

“peace" mission after two days of talks in Washington with President Kennedy and other United States officials. Dr. Sukarno and the President of -Mali (Mr Midibo Keita) had been sent to Washington by the Belgrade conference to seek new highlevel negotiations between the Soviets and America. But Dr. Sukarno made it clear that his new attempt to open doors between Washington and Moscow was his own idea and that he was not acting on behalf of the Belgrade Powers. Mr Stevenson said he and Dr. Sukarno had discussed “affairs of mutual interest, including almost all the questions that divide the world today, the position of the non-aligned, or neutralist. States as well as the ambitions of Indonesia for leadership and the proper exercise of it as one of the great countries in the world and. as one of the oldest cultural societies in the world.”