Mr Kirk opposed to security pacts

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33425, 5 January 1974, Page 12

Mr Kirk opposed to security pacts

(N.I.P .4. -Reuter—Copyright) DACCA, January 4. The Prime Minister (Mr Kirk) said in Dacca last evening that he opposed the idea of collective security pacts—“a system that tends to divide countries.’’

“New Zealand stands for a policy aimed at bringing countries together through bilateral agreement and regional co-operation,” he said. Economic help New Zealand would stay in the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation as long as it directed its efforts towards civilian development, and cut down its military role. Mr Kirk, who left Bangladesh today after a four-day visit said that he wanted S.E.A.T.O. replaced by an organisation with broader aims, although it was already devoted mainly to economic development. Support in U.X S.E.A.T.O. was set up as a defensive alliance in 1954 by Australia, Britain, France. New Zealand, Pakistan, the; Philippines, Thailand and the United States. It came into force in 1955. Pakistan left the organisation a year ago. Last year S.E.A.T.O. announced it would no longer concentrate on military affairs, but would switch its attention to economic development and antisubversion campaigns. Mr Kirk rejected recent Soviet proposals for an Asian

collective security system as tending to “divide country from country.” He supported efforts to make the Indian Ocean a "zone of peace.” and said New Zealand was exploring prospects of establishing a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific. Bilateral trade Of his withdrawal of New Zealand troops from Vietnam. Mr Kirk said: “We won’t seek military alliance, we are not 'seeking to be involved in a military arrangement.” Asia’s future, he said, “does not rest on military action, it rests on co-j operation, mutual respect, mutual assistance and development.” He called on Pakistan to recognise Bangladesh, and support her entry into the United Nations. “Recognition is no more; than acknowledgment of something that has been a fact for the last two years,” he said. A joint communique said Bangladesh and New Zealand would work to build up their bilateral trade. New Zealand would finance some aid projects in Bangladesh’s fiveyear plan, including rehabilitation for crippled children. In Chittagong, near the end of the tour. Mr Kirk said

that New Zealand was looking at the possibility of establishing a liaison office in Dacca as the starting point for permanent diplomatic representation.

“There has been no more moving experience in my life than this visit to Bangladesh,” Mr Kirk said. In Dacca, earlier, Mr Kirk watched a display by two Fletcher aircraft, given by I New Zealand to the Banglaidesh (heikh Mujibur RahINew Zealand is giving 16 aircraft, and training pilots in a three-year programme that will cost sl.sm. N.Z. visit Before he left for Kuala Lumpur, Mr Kirk said that the Prime Minister of Bangladesh (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) and the Foreign Minister (Dr Kamal Hossain) had accepted an invitation to visit New Zealand, probably this year.

Mr Kirk is due back in Wellington on Monday.