Intervention will dominate talks

Press, 26 February 1980, Page 8

Intervention will dominate talks

NZPA-Reuter Atami Representatives of 30 communist parties; including those of the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and- Cuba, will today ' open a five-day conference in Atami, Japan, expected to be dominated by the Soviet military intervention in 'Afghanistan,'A .

Communist sources said they, expected several delegations, including the host Japanese Communist Party, to call for the immediate withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The- J.C;P., which moved closer to Moscow after., the Japanese Conservative Government signed a- ~ peace ■treaty with China in 1978, also says the United States and China should not help Muslim rebels fighting against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The J.C.P., which is holding its annual convention in Atami, a spa town south Tokyo, has erected a sign on its national.headquarters in the capital calling for Russian troops to leave Afghanistan.

The sources said other foreign delegates to the conference, including the Italians and the Yugoslavs, were expected to support the J.C.P. in its move against Moscow. The Soviet Union has fielded a strong conference delegation, - headed by the Central Committee secretary, Mr Vladimir Dolgikh. . a .close ally of .Moscow, has sent its ViceiPremier (Mr Le Thanh Nghi), and Cuba, another good friend of th<? Soviet party, hits, despatched a Central Committee member, Mr Fau-

re Chaumont Medievilla. It will be the first time in 22 years that Moscow has sent a delegation to a J.C.P. convention. The communist parties of Russia and Japan normalised relatons in December, ending a 15-year rift that began When, the Soviet Union supported a J.C.P. breakaway grbbp over a partial nuclear test-ban treaty. China, Russia's communist rival in the Far East, and the country that invaded northern Vietnam last year, has not beeninvited.

A: J.C.P. spokesman lias said that this was because relations between the J.C.P. ■and Peking “are in an abnormal state.”

Apart from differences over the Afghanistan issue, the J.C.P.. and the Soviet partj’ remain, far apart on the central question that has poisoned Japanese-Soviet relations since, the Second World War.

The J.C.P., as well as the governing Japanese Liberal Democratic. Party, want the return of four North Pacific islands occupied by Russian troops at the end of the war, but the Soviet Union says that there are no outstanding territorial problems between the two countries.

Political sources said the J.C.P. would lose political support if it took a different line on the islands issue because the Japanese .people were united in wanting their return.

In fact, the J.C.P. goes a step further than the Government, demanding the return of all the Kurile Islands, not just four, taken over by the Red Army in 1945.