SAIGON’S TERMS FOR TALKS

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31586, 25 January 1968, Page 11

SAIGON’S TERMS FOR TALKS

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) SAIGON, January 24. The South Vietnamese Foreign Minister (Mr Tran Van Do) today listed firm prerequisites for peace talks with the North Vietnamese regime, all of which his Government had laid down previously.

Mr Do was addressing a ses-1 sion of the South Vietnamese Senate’s foreign relations ) committee, whose chairman' (Mr Tran Chanh Thanh) had] said that a disturbance had been created among the' people of South Vietnam because of rumours that South Vietnam’s allies were advising the Government to try to meet Liberation Front leaders to negotiate peace. In a reply lasting an hour and 20 minutes and delivered calmly and softly, Mr Do said: “Our stand is not to recognise the Liberation Front, not to talk with it, and not to co . operate with it in a coalition government.” Mr Do gave these prerequisites for peace talks, in which, he said, his Government must be included: Hanoi must stop all military and terrorist activities and must halt the infiltration of troops into South Vietnam. The Communist Government

must dissolve the branches it has formed in South Vietiam, such as the N.L.F., the Liberation Radio and the People's Revolutionary Party, the all-encompassing Communist political move- • ment in South Vietnam. South Vietnam has the right to choose its own Government and to decide its own destiny. After the cessation of hostilities, all allied military forces must be evacuated from South Vietnam, but the Government must have the right to request their return should a renewed threat of Communist aggression arise. Mr Do, who recently returned from a tour of several African countries, stressed that the Saigon Government would welcome suggestions or proposals “from any countries or any persons” which would help the Vietiamese people to re-establish peace.