Progress Announced From Tokyo Talks

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30471, 19 June 1964, Page 11

Progress Announced From Tokyo Talks

(N Z P.A.-Reuter—Copyright> TOKYO, June 18. Ministers of Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia met in Tokyo today to prepare the way for a summit conference and announced they had already made further progress on the thorny problem of Indonesian guerrilla withdrawals from Malaysian Borneo.

At the end of their first session, lasting two hours and 25 minutes this morning, Mr Sslvador P. Lopez, the Philippines special envoy, read a Joint communique announcing the Ministers had agreed to add three further inspection cheek points to -the two already agreed upon for verification of the withdrawal. Two were to be in Sarawak and two in Sabah. Each of the two existing check points is in two parts —one in the Indonesian side of the border and the other on the Malaysian side. The communique said the Ministers had also begun discussions on the agenda for

message was received from the Thai verification teams before 5 p.m. this evening, the Ministers would hold a further session today. If not, they would meet in the morning. Asked to amplify the communique's reference to verification beginning, Mr Lopez replied: “It means withdrawal, of course.” Malaysia yesterday aband-

oned her insistence that withdrawal must actually begin before she would agree to sit at the same conference table as Indonesia for Ministerial talks.

She agreed to begin as soon as word was received that the Thai teams were in position and ready to verify any withdrawal.