CATEGORICAL DENIAL

Evening Star, Issue 25067, 7 January 1944, Page 3

CATEGORICAL DENIAL

DR BENES'S CAIRO STATEMENT "NOT THE SORT OF THING HE WOULD SAY" LONDON, January 5. The Czecho-Slovak Press Bureau in London points out that the Cairo report which was cabled by the British United Press ,correspondent imputes to Dr Benes statements which he " could not have made at a gathering of the Czech colony •in Cairo." The bureau categorically denies that Dr Benes issued a statement to the effect that Czecho-Slovakia and Russia would have common frontiers, or that he said that Marshal Stalin agreed that all Germans should be expelled from the Sudetenland. The bureau also categorically denies the inference that Russia intends to regain and keep Bessarabia and North ißukovina.

The British United Press, referring to the bureau's denials of Dr Benes's statement, says: "The Czech spokesman in London admitted that he had not seen a copy of Dr Benes's statement, and the denial was based on the fact that 'this is not the sort of thing Dr Benes would say.' " [A. previous message stated: Russia and Czecho-Slovakia will have a common frontier after the war. Dr Benes gave this first concrete indication of Russia's post-war plans to an informal gathering of Czechs in Cairo, who believe it means that Russia intends to regain and keep Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina,. which Russia occupied after Rumania's frontiers were withdrawn in 1940. Dr Benes said Marshal Stalin had agreed that all Germans should be expelled from the Sudetenland. He added: "Now that I have seen with my own eyes the tremendous results that the Soviet forces are achieving I am sure the war will end in 1944."]