Mrs Bandaranaike’s Foreign Policy

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32313, 3 June 1970, Page 11

Mrs Bandaranaike’s Foreign Policy

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

COLOMBO, June 1

Ceylon’s newly-elected Prime Minister, Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike, has appointed a Communist and three Trotskyists to key Cabinet posts.

At an informal meeting after swearing in her Cabinet of 20—in which she herself has taken three portfolios— Mrs Bandaranaike told her colleagues to set aside one day a week to meet members of the public and hear their representations. The United National Party Government of Mr Dudley Senanayake lost to her three- ; party coalition in last Wednesday’s General Election because its Ministers had become isolated, she said. Mrs Bandaranaike intends to steer her country’s foreign policy towards the Left of the : non-aligned world. Her foreign policy is based ' on: non-alignment with any ; military or power bloc; sup- (

port for all measures to further world peace and disarmament; support for all national liberation struggles against imperialism and colonialism; and the maintenance of friendly and mutuallybeneflcial relations with all States that respect Ceylon’s independence. Recognition has been promised to East Germany, North Vietnam, North Korea, and the self-proclaimed provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam. Ceylon will also move to support the Arab cause in the dispute with Israel. At present, Ceylon has diplomatic relations with Israel, and there is an Israeli charge d’affaires in Colombo, but the United Front says that it will suspend relations with Israel until she either conforms to United Nations resolutions calling for her withdrawal from the territories of Egypt, Jordan and Syria she occupied in the June, 1967, war, or “arrives at any solution acceptable to the Arab States concerned.’’