‘Cease-fire imminent’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 13

‘Cease-fire imminent’

(N.Z.P.A. -Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, Dec. 7. President Nixon’s special adviser, Dr Henry Kissinger, and Hanoi’s emissary, Mr Le Due Tho, are meeting in secret again today amid intense speculation that an agreement on a ceasefire in Vietnam is imminent. One French newspaper goes as far as predicting that an accord will be signed either today or tomorrow. The White House is refusing to comment on any aspect of the peace negotiations, but reports of an imminent agreement are also circulating in Washington. The Washington “Evening Star,” in a dispatch from its Paris correspondent, Andrew Borowiec, says: “North Vietnam is said to have promised to release a token number of American prisoners before Christmas if the United States initials a peace agreement by December 15.”

The peace negotiators in Paris met for 5) hours yesterday and diplomatic sources said afterwards that a cease-fire compromise appeared very close, and that Dr Kissinger and Mr Tho were busy “drafting clarification clauses and tying up loose ends.”

The two men yesterday showed the journalists who had been hounding

them all week that, outwardly at least, all was well: they shook hands both before and after their talks. It was the first time that they had been seen to do this. The Right-wing Paris newspaper, “L’Aurore,” echoes optimistic reports elsewhere in the French press with a headline declaring: “An agreement will be signed in the next few hours.” Quoting “a very reliable source,” it says: “We can announce that the accord will be signed either today or tomorrow.” It' adds: “The agreement is not always to the taste of Saigon . . . Hanoi has accepted the idea of including Laos and Cambodia in the final agreement. The South Vietnamese remain reticent, but will end up by accepting it.” Reports from Saigon say that the United States Ambassador (Mr Ellsworth Bunker) had a long meeting with President Thieu this morning. No details are given of the meeting, which lasted for 80 minutes. In Djakarta, the capital of Indonesia—one of the countries proposed for the commission to supervise a cease-fire — the Foreign Minister (Mr Adam Malik) forecast today that a Vietnam peace agreement would be signed in a few days.