Thant Going On Peace Mission

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31333, 1 April 1967, Page 13

Thant Going On Peace Mission

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

NEW YORK, March 31.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, will leave next Tuesday for a two-week visit to Asia with the problem of Vietnam uppermost in his mind.

His latest proposals to end the war are certain to figure prominently in his talks with government leaders in Ceylon, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and he is expected to urge them all to use their influence in the cause of peace.

On his way to Asia, U Thant will preside over a meeting in Geneva of the heads of United Nations specialised agencies. Although he has said that he has no plans to meet North Vietnamese representatives, si-nilar denials were made before and during his recent holiday trip to Burma, and it was only revealed after the event that such a meeting had taken place. It was then that U Thant first discussed his new peace plan—for a general truce, to be followed by preliminary talks and the reconvening of the Geneva conference. North Vietnam has a consulgeneral in New Delhi, it was noted.

It will be the first time the Secretary General has visited India since his flying visit in September, 1965, aimed at trying to bring about a ceasefire in the Indo-Pakistani fighting over Kashmir.

But reliable sources in New York said that the Kashmir problem was unlikely to be discussed in substance with Mrs Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister. It was uncertain what emphasis President Mohammad Ayub Khan, of Pakistan, might want to place on the subject. Peace Talks Vietnam will be of particular interest in the talks in New Delhi, as India is a member of the International Control Commission for Vietnam and U Thant has suggested members of that body might take part in preliminary peace talks. In New Delhi, U Thant will become the first recipient of the Jawaharlal Nehru Prize for International Understanding. In Afghanistan, he will resume talks which he had in New York recently with Prime Minister Mohammed Hashim Maiwandal. U Thant will start his Asian tour in Colombo, where he

will meet Mr Dudley Senanayake, the Prime Minister. He will go to New Delhi and then to Katmandu and Kabul before winding up the visit in Rawalpindi. He plans to return to New York on April 21.