N.Z.-Soviet Clash On Trusteeship

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30157, 14 June 1963, Page 3

N.Z.-Soviet Clash On Trusteeship

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, June 13. The Soviet Union today accused the New Zealand delegate in the United Nations Trusteeship Council of “a hostile act.”

The accusation came after a sharp exchange between Mr F. H. Corner, of New Zealand, and the Soviet delegate (Mr Vladimir Brykin) - The exchange occurred after the New Zealand delegate had compared the situation in the Soviet territories unfavourably with that in the American-administered Pacific Islands trust territory. Mr Brykin has accused the United States of trying to turn this area into “an internal sea.” Mr Brykin, protesting at the

reference® to his own country, said Russia had been a sovereign State long before New Zealand existed, “when the islands still belonged to the Maoris.” Mr Corner’s comments were “a hostile act against the Soviet Union, directed against the integrity and sovereignty of our State,” the Russian delegate said.

Mr Corner said the Soviet delegate seemed embarrassed by the comparison—“and rightly so." But to describe this as a hostile act was a wildly incorrect and improbable charge, he said.

Mr Conner had referred to the Soviet “annexation” of neighbouring territories >fter World War II and he repeated his charges of annexation after Mr Brykin protested at such “slanderous allegations." “The Soviet delegate said his own country came into being long before New Zealand existed,” Mr Comer said. “This is precisely the point I am making with regard to the Soviet territories added after the war. ' “The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was put under the supervision of the international community. "Territories annexed by the Soviet Union after World War II are another matter. “We are living in the twentieth century, in a world where annexation has no place.

“If the Soviet Union has to be dragged screaming and kicking into this twentieth century, there is nothing I can do about it,” he said.