BEVIN SPEAKS ON BERLIN AIR COLLISION

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 April 1948, Page 5

BEVIN SPEAKS ON BERLIN AIR COLLISION

(Recd. 2 p.m.) LONDON, Aprii 6. “The Soviet authorities did not issue a warning, as they should have done, that the fighter which caused the Viking crash yesterday was in the air,” said Mr Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons. He had no information to suggest that the Soviet fighter’s conduct .was the result of direct instructions from the Soviet authorities, but he was pressing for an immediate inquiry. Mr Bevin added that the whole question of travel was under discussion with the Russians. “We cannot yield our right to free access to and from the occupation zone,” he said. “I don’t want, to aggravate the already difficult situation, which is capable of solution if there is goodwill.” Similar statements were made to the House of Lords by Lord Nathan, and Lord Pakenham. The Marquess of Salisbury said the recent actions of the Soviet authorities in Berlin could only tend further to impair the relations between the Soviet and the Western Powers. He was glad to know that strong representations had already been made about the air crash by General Sir Brian Robertson. A British-Russian investigating committee has begun an examination of the crashed aircraft in Berlin, says the British United Press correspondent. Lord Pakenham cancelled his visit to Vienna tomorrow. Mr Gruber, the Austrian Foreign Minister, was told by telephone from London that the visit wa’S postponed “because of the political situation.”