Stalemate In Moscow

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30178, 9 July 1963, Page 13

Stalemate In Moscow

(H.Z.P.A. -Reuter—Copyright)

. MOSCOW, July 8. Top-secret talks between Russia and China on their ideological differences are expected to resume in Moscow today.

Most Western observers in Moscow are sceptical whether the talks will solve the unprecedented crisis between the world’s chief Communist Powers after the weeks of bitter recrimination between them. Observers believe the talks win last only a few days. Western observers consider that at best the two sides will agree on calling another world-wide conference of Communist parties. An almost complete news blackout has shrouded the discussions since China's team, led by the party’s general secretary, Mr Teng Hsiaoping. arrived last Friday.

The two sides are believed to have held only a preliminary discussion over dinner on Friday night, followed by a meeting on Saturday lasting several hours.

A Soviet source said the two delegations did not meet yesterday. The Communist Party newspaper, “Pravda," today reported that plenary meetings of the Armenian and Latvian parties categorically rejected as "groundless and slanderous" attacks of the central committee of the Chinese Communist Party on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and other fraternal parties.

They similarly rejected Chinese attacks on decisions

of the 20th, 2lst and 22nd Congresses and the programme of the Soviet Communist Party, “Pravda” correspondents said. In the London Sunday newspaper, the "Observer." a Soviet affairs expert, Edward Crankshaw, said yesterday that the ideological squabble was “only a symptom of the battle between two great Powers locked in irreconcilable rivalry for the leadership of the Communist movement.” The question, he said, was how long Russia could go on presenting herself as the fit leader of any worldwide revolutionary movement