U.N. Upholds Korean Role

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31522, 9 November 1967, Page 15

U.N. Upholds Korean Role

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW YORK, Nov. 8. The main Political Committee yesterday reaffirmed the United Nation’s role in reuniting Korea, rejecting Communist demands that American and other troops be told to leave the country within six months.

A senes of Communistbacked resolutions, supported by several Afro-Asian nations, which sought to end the presence of the United Nations in the divided nation were substantially defeated at the end of an often acrimonious week-long debate. The majority of delegates in the committee joined the United States, Australia, Britain and other Western nations in voting 67 to 23, with 23 absentions, to extend the mandate of the Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea (U.N.C.U.R.K.). The Communists sought to wind up U.N.C.U.R.K. and remove the Korean question from the General Assembly agenda. Claims Rejected American and other Western nations rejected Soviet claims that the United States supplies the bulk of the United Nations force, had imposed an occupation regime on South Korea and embroiled the country in an aggressive Asian military pact along with Japan. The South Korean Foreign Minister, Mr Kyu Hah Choi, who participated in the debate without voting rights, also denied Communist claims that his Government was a puppet regime subser-

vient to Washington and said the main obstacle to reunification was increasing acts of aggression by North Korean saboteurs. The North Korean Government was denied a seat in the debate because it does not accept the authority of the United Nations to intervene in the country’s affairs. The Soviet Delegate, Mr L. 1. Mendelevich, described South Korea as an American beachhead for aggression in Asia.

The Seoul Government had come to power “as a result of a violent military coup, with steel and blood,” the Russian delegate said. Tens of thousands of Korean soldiers were being sent to Vietnam “for the sake of certain interests in Washington.” Observer Teams Congressman W. S. Broomfield, for the United States, said no amount of jargon or double talk would persuade most delegations that it was South Korea, and not North Korea, which was responsible for recent tensions along the 38th parallel. Joint observer teams to investigate acts of sabotage in South Korea could be put into action at any time. All that was needed was a simple “yes” from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, he said The Soviet charges had “the ring of sheer fantasy,” the American delegate said. American forces were in Korea as part of a joint United Nations force despatched under United Nations resolutions to repel aggression from the North. Most of the American forces were now withdrawn. At present they amounted to about 50,000 men. Troops from eight other member nations remained in Korea, mainly for liaison duties. “Their presence can, and wil., be ended whenever it is requested by the Security Council.”

Referring to South Korean forces fighting alongside Americans in Vietnam, Mr Broomfield asked if it was surprising that one Asian nation, seeing a threat to the freedom of another, would try to meet that threat, even at the expenses of reducing its own defensive capacity. “This is the essence of collective security, that a threat to one represents a threat to all,” the American delegate said. (N.Z. View, p. 13.)