PAYMENT OF DEBT

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30399, 25 March 1964, Page 17

PAYMENT OF DEBT

No Soviet Alternative (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PRINCETON (New Jersey), March 23. The United States tonight declared the Soviet Union could avoid losing its vote in the United Nations General Assembly this year only by paying off some of its arrears to the United Nations. The declaration, by Mr Adlai Stevenson, chief American delegate to the United Nations, followed a Soviet statement on Saturday warning of a possible break-up of the United Nations if pressure were brought on the Soviet Union to contribute to the Congo and Middle East peace-keeping operations. Mr Stevenson in a Dag Hammarskjoeld Memorial Lecture in Princeton said that Soviet Bloc and other countries owed about 92 million dollars to the United Nations. There was no question of negotiation on article 19 of the United Nations Charter which provides that any state whose arrears amount to as much as its last two years’ assessments “shall have no vote in the General Assembly.”

The situation could only be avoided by a Soviet payment, he said.

Mr Stevenson urged the desirability of a standby United Nations peace force ready for all emergencies. The Cyprus crisis “has vividly exposed the frailties of the existing machinery,” he said.