MINISTERS REFUSE TO WITHDRAW RESIGNATION

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31196, 21 October 1966, Page 11

MINISTERS REFUSE TO WITHDRAW RESIGNATION

f.X.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SAIGON, October 20. At least two of the seven South Vietnamese Cabinet members who resigned yesterday were said to have refused to withdraw their resignations today, in spite of strenuous pressure, the Associated Press reported.

The ministers for Youth and Education were said to be “willing not to make an issue” out of their dispute with the North-ern-dominated regime of Premier Ky just befor the Manila conference on Vietnam, but sources said they had insisted that their resignations remain in effect.

Unofficial reports circulated that Air Vice Marshal Ky had prevailed on the other five Ministers to withdraw their resignations, but no informed source indicated that he had managed to resolve the basic differences between his inner circle of natives of North Vietnam and the dissenting Ministers, all of them natives of South Vietnam. Air Vice Marshal Ky announced to a crowded news conference that while he was in Manila he was leaving the

Government in the hands of one of the seven who resigned yesterday, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Nguyen Luu Vien, who had also been scheduled to go to Manila. The Prime Minister’s statement made no mention of the Cabinet crisis, and he ignored questions about it submitted to him in writing by newsmen.

news conference but would not talk to newsmen. Numerous rumours, many of them contradictory, circulated concerning the political strike, but no major official would comment. The Prime Minister said the Manila conference would bring a review of all efforts to bring peace to Vietnam. From the beginning, he said, the Government of Vietnam had always welcomed the idea of such a meeting because it would be the first time all the allies in Vietnam

Deputy Prime Minister Vien and the Public Works Minister, Mr Truong Van Thuan, another of the seven Who resigned, were present at the

had an opportunity to meet at the top level. Air Vice Marshal Ky said the South Vietnamese delegation would speak first at Manila and explain “the significance of our struggle.”