N. Vietnam Also Rejects Mission

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30793, 3 July 1965, Page 15

N. Vietnam Also Rejects Mission

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

HONG KONG, July 2. North Vietnam yesterday joined China and the Soviet Union in refusing to receive the Commonwealth peace mission on Vietnam headed by the British Prime Minister, Mr Wilson. The refusal came in a broadcast by Hanoi Radio, which said: “We do not receive Mr Wilson’s mission because we have every reason for doubting Mr Wilson's good will for peace.”

The broadcast declared that President Johnson had “entrusted Mr Wilson with peddling his peace drug” and asserted that the mission’s aim was to serve American aggressive schemes.

The refusal was not unexpected, Reuter said. North Vietnam had already told Britain it would not reply to the message requesting the mission’s visit because the message had been addressed to the North Vietnamese “authorities” instead of to the government. Hanoi’s decision, following similar refusals by Moscow and Peking, bars the mission —composed of leaders of Britain, Ghana, Nigeria and Trinidad and Tobago—from carrying out half of its planned programme. Other Half There has been speculation that the mission will also drop the other half of its projected peace tour —-to Washington, Saigon and also to Geneva for a meeting with U Thant, the United Nations SecretaryGeneral. But Mr Wilson told the British House of Commons last Tuesday that the mission would remain in being even

if it were not possible to make its planned peace tour now. In London last night Mr Wilson said the peace mission must not take “no" for an answer in its bid to seek negotiations. Mr Wilson rejected a suggestion that, the mission

should split up, with him going to Washington; and President Kwame Nkrumah, of Ghana, to China and North Vietnam He said this was considered during last week s Commonwealth leaders’ meeting in London.