BETTER TERMS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21900, 19 December 1945, Page 5

BETTER TERMS

BRITAIN & FRANCE PACT ON_ LEVANT FORCES TO WITHDRAW NEW ALLIANCE POSSIBLE (Special Correspondent.) (10 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 18. Though the terms of the British-French agreement on the future of their troops in the Levant and on. the [Middle East policy generally have not yet been published, there has been a ready welcome to the evident fact that Franco-British relations are mending. It is remarked that relations between the two countries have improved so much during the past few months that the conclusion early m 1946 of a new treaty of alliance between them is regarded in some London circles as not only possible but highly probable. Agreement for Withdrawal It is reported from Paris that the Levant agreement provides for tre withdrawal of British' troops from Syria to Palestine and of French troops to the Lebanon, the latter to remain there until security arrangements for the area have been decided upon by the United Nations. Since it is hoped that the United Nations will come into active existence before long, the period ot the French military sojourn in Lebanon should, perhaps, be no longer than the time it would take to carry out full evacuation. But so long as the United Nations is an uncertain fixture, there is no certainty in the Levantine mind. The agreement, it is remarked, seems to point to an increase in French troops within the small republic, with no concurrent increase in the British and no immediate prospect of a methodical withdrawal from the whole of the Levant zone. The numbers of French troops, in fact, are small and only a few con-

tingents from Syria will go to swell the French ranks in the Lebanon, themselves less than 10,000. Their presence, it is thought, should not prejudice any future arrangements with the Levant States, provided the British and French are harmonising policies that have as their object the peaceful development of the whole of the Middle East. Britain’s Frankness While the Levant agreement is evidence of a friendlier spirit between France and Britain, it is reported that almost equally notable is the anxiety of the British Government to avoid giving offence to the French through the latter’s exclusion from the Moscow talks and the understanding of Britain’s position in the matter which was revealed by General de Gaulle in his public comments about the Big Three meeting. The British Government, it is understood, was very frank in acquainting the French Government with the steps which led up to the Moscow meeting and the reasons why it was considered necessary to revert to the Big Three meetings in order to impart a greater measure of reality into the deliberations of more widely based gatherings—in particular those of the United Nations’ Organisation. It also made clear to the French Government that if the question of Allied control in Germany was discussed during the Moscow talks, Britain would ->ot be a party to any decisions taken there or elsewhere to which France was not a willing partner. General de Gaulle, on his part, indicated that he regarded the Moscow meeting as an attempt to solve what primarily was a Soviet-American quarrel. It has not gone without notice, both in London and Paris, that the tendency towards “polarisation” of world affairs with Moscow and Washington exerting opposite attractions has helped to renew the old ties between France and Britain. Being European Powers, they are more deeply and more immediately concerned with Eurone’s future than are America and Russia.