PACT EXERCISES No Date For End Of Withdrawal

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31730, 13 July 1968, Page 13

PACT EXERCISES No Date For End Of Withdrawal

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

PRAGUE, July 12.

Soviet troops are expected to begin leaving Czechoslovakia tomorrow after Warsaw Pact exercises, but no date has been given for completion of the withdrawal.

The Warsaw Pact Supreme Command last night announced completion of the manoeuvres—ll days after Czechoslovak officials said they were over.

The command announcement said pact staff exercises were held in June and July in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. It said staff, communications and support units from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hun-

gary, East Germany and the Soviet Union took part in the exercises, which were also attended by representatives of the Bulgarian and Rumanian general staffs. The announcement is after days of uncertainty and mounting expressions of concern in Czechoslovak newspapers over reports that Soviet troops were remaining in the country.

During this time there has also been renewed Soviet criticism of the new party leadership.

The press secretary of the Defence Ministry, LieutenantColonel Frantisek Kudrna, told a Bratislava newspaper yesterday that Soviet troops were being kept in the country for political reasons. He said anti-Soviet leaflets had been distributed in Czechoslovakia and the impact of the leaflets had delayed the troops’ departure. Villagers at Milovice, north of Prague, said yesterday they had been completely cut off from contact with the Soviet troops, who were having most of their supplies flown in.

The villagers said they had even been barred from picking mushrooms in the forests because the Soviet troops were there.

A Reuter correspondent, Lars-Erik Nelson, yesterday drove to a Soviet Army camp at Milovice, and spoke to a Soviet infantry captain who said his men were expecting orders to move out in a day or two.

The Soviet captain insisted that there were no Russian tanks in the area. He said: “The Czechs have their own tanks.” His men were simply signals and staff auxiliaries. A Czechoslovak Army captain also said there were no Soviet tanks in his district north of Prague.