Mr Kirk Doubtful On S.E.A.T.O.’s Future

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31987, 14 May 1969, Page 32

Mr Kirk Doubtful On S.E.A.T.O.’s Future

(New Zealand Press Association)

HAMILTON, May 13. There was no foreseeable future for the S.E.A.T.O. organisation, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) said in Hamilton yesterday.

Mr Kirk said the organisation as it stood was ineffective. Pakistan was there as an observer, France had gone, Britain was going, and the United States would like to go.

Two of the largest countries in Asia, Indonesia and Japan, felt they could not belong to it. Malaysia and Singapore were not members. “What concerns us is that the Prime Minister has described S.E.A.T.O. as the central organ of security,” he said. “I think we should be working towards a new agreement from which Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan would not feel obliged to remain apart.” This agreement should be based on a concept of mutual assistance, trade and development.

It was very much in New

Zealand’s interest to have closer ties with Indonesia and Japan. Referring to New Zealand’s security, Mr Kirk said he thought New Zealand ought to be contributing to a state of affairs in which it would not be necessary to station troops outside the country. Economic and social advancement was by far the best deterrent and the strongest safeguard of security. Instability arose from

chaotic economic and social conditions, he said. However, Mr Kirk favoured continued membership of the A.N.Z.U.S. pact. He thought New Zealand troops should remain in Singapore and Malaysia for as long as those fellow Commonwealth countries desired their presence.

Mr Kirk was addressing the Waikato branch of the Australia and New Zealand Economics Society.