DEFENCE TALKS BEGIN

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31345, 15 April 1967, Page 13

DEFENCE TALKS BEGIN

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, April 14.

Four defence meetings spread over nine days began in Washington today to discuss progress in the Vietnam war, the over-all security situation in the Pacific, and the meaning of China’s cultural revolution.

They will be: Two days of discussion between military representatives of the eight-nation South-east Asia Treaty Organisation to set the stage for the annual S.EAT.O. council conference next week. The S.E.A.T.O. annual conference from April 18 to 20. A conference of the Foreign Ministers of the seven na-

tions contributing troops to fight in South Vietnam. Winding up the series will be a meeting of the A.N.Z.U.S. council —Australia, New Zealand and the United States from April 21 to 22.

Six of the S.EAT.O. partners—Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines—will be represented by their Foreign Ministers at the council meeting. French Boycott

France, which sent only an observer to the last two meetings, is boycotting the con-

ference because of its oppositionto United States involvement in Vietnam and Washington's over-all South-east Asian policies.

Pakistan, drawing closer to China because of United States military aid to India,

will be represented by its Ambassador to the United States, Mr Agha Hilaly. The Foreign Ministers of the seven nations contributing troops in South Vietnam will review military, political and economic developments in that country in a conference arranged as a follow-up to last October’s Manila summit meeting. Chinese Threat Both the S.E.A.T.O. and Vietnam meetings are expected to take a hard look at China to try to gauge whether the turmoil there poses a threat to security in the region. The United States Secretary of State, Mr Dean Rusk, at present with President Johnson at the Latin American

Hemisphere summit conference in Uruguay, will return at the week-end in time to greet the visiting Foreign Ministers. President Johnson will not take part in the meetings, but he is expected to meet the Ministers at the White House and may address one of the sessions.

The highest-ranking official atending the conferences will be the New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr Keith Holyoake, who is also his country’s External Affairs Minister.