VIETNAM STRUGGLE

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29802, 19 April 1962, Page 8

VIETNAM STRUGGLE

Soviet Plan Rejected (N.Z.P.A.-Keuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, April 17. Britain yesterday rejected a Soviet proposal that the two countries should send a joint message to Washington urging an end to the American “interference” in South Vietnam. The Soviet proposal was contained in a note, dated March 17, accompanying a Soviet statement sent to all countries participating in the 1954 Geneva conference on Indo-China. Britain and the Soviet Union are co-chairmen of the conference.

The British reply said Britain regretted that the Soviet Union had ignored its request that the two countries should send a joint message to the North Vietnamese authorities calling on them “to desist from their subversive activities in South Vietnam.”

Yesterday'a British Note said it was the British Government’s view that these activities were the “root of the present troubles in South Vietnam and threatened the peace and stability of Southeast Asia.” The Note defended American “measures” in South Vietnam, which were adopted “long after the North Vietnamese authorities had initiated their campaign to weaken and overthrow” the South Vietnam Government It said that since the 4wo co-chairmen “take a fundamentally different view of the causes of the grave situation which has arisen in Vietnam,” Britain considered the two countries should await the report of the International Control Commission.