Frustration at Geneva

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32554, 13 March 1971, Page 17

Frustration at Geneva

(N.Z.P A.-Reuter—Copyright) GENEVA, March 12.

The Geneva Disarmament Conference of 25 nations met yesterday for its 500th session, and heard a call by Czechoslovakia for negotiations on the elimination of military bases on foreign soil.

At the end of a speech on the possibility of banning underground nuclear tests

and chemical and biological weapons, the Czechoslovak Ambassador (Mr Milos Vejvoda) said:

“It would certainly be desirable to pay attention to the ban on use of nuclear weapons, to the question of the elimination of military bases on foreign territory and, last but not least, also to the question of complete demilitarisation of the seabed.”

The Soviet Union also suggested recently that the conference should examine the ?,uestion of military bases on oreign soil.

Of underground nuclear testing, Mr Vejvoda said that a ban would not only contribute to disarmament, but would also reduce pollution of the environment. Advances in seismological technology made on-site control inspection unnecessary, he added.

All four speakers at yesterday’s session Mexico, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Italy—referred to the frustration felt by many people over the slowness of the conference’s progress. Now entering its tenth year, the conference has yet to negotiate a true measure of disarmament. Its achievements have been essentially preventative, and have not resulted in the destruction of any weapons. Among its successes are the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, agreed in 1968, and the treaty banning nuclear arms from the seabed, approved by the United Nations General Assemly towards the end of last year. The 1963 Moscow Treaty banning atmospheric nuclear testing also resulted from negotiations in Geneva by a conference sub - committee consisting of the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain. Stopford dead

General Sir Montagu Stopford, a former commander of the Allied land forces in South-East Asia, has died in London. He was 78. General Stopford’s Second World War service was outstanding for his successful leadership in Burma—he commanded the newly-formed 12th Army in 1945 that launched a concentrated offensive against the Japanese and joined Field Marshal Viscount Slim’s 14th Army in defeating them at Kohima.—London, March 12.