Czechoslovaks Give Russia Reassurance

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 13

Czechoslovaks Give Russia Reassurance

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

PRAGUE, May 10.

President Ludvik Svoboda of Czechoslovakia has declared that his country will never allow her friendship and alliance with the Soviet Union to be disrupted.

The President gave this reassurance to Moscow at an open-air rally marking the twenty-third anniversary of Czechoslovakia’s liberation from the Germans by the Soviet Army. Speaking on the new social-

ist order in Czechoslovakia, which is causing obvious concern to the Soviet Union and other East European countries, President Svoboda said: “This great period will only be appreciated fully by the next generations. “It will remain the historical achievement of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia . . . that it critically assessed the entire situation, denounced faults of the past and began with new fundamental reforms in all spheres of social life.” The President’s reassurance came as other East European leaders dispersed after talks in Moscow believed to have been centred on recent events in Prague. The meeting had ended amid growing signs of alarm among Czechoslovakia's more orthodox neighbours that the country’s wave of reforms might go too far. The Communist leaders—ail party chiefs—had made a dramatic dash to Moscow and later issued a non-committal statement declaring that they had “exchanged opinions” on world and Communist problems.

Diplomatic observers In the Soviet capital are unanimous in agreeing that the developments in Czechoslovakia under the new Party leadership of Alexander Dubcek were the main topic of discussion. Czechoslovakia was not represented at the “little summit,” which was joined by Mr Todor Zhivkov, of Bulgaria, Mr Walter Ulbricht, of East Germany, Mr Janos Kadar, of Hungary, and Mr Wladyslaw Gomulka, of Poland. The Moscow talks are believed to be the first at which Prague has gone unrepresented at a multilateral East European gathering since the Communist take-over in Czechoslovakia in 1948.