SOVIET MENACE MAY START YUGOSLAV COUP

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23042, 5 September 1949, Page 5

SOVIET MENACE MAY START YUGOSLAV COUP

(11 a.m.) LONDON. Sept. 4. The Observer’s diplomatic correspondent says that according to reports reaching London, it is expected 'that Russia in the next few weeks will build up military manoeuvres on the Yugoslav borders 'and then provoke or stage an incident.

Well-informed circles do not think that Russia will actually invade Yugoslavia but probablv she hopes, by menace on Marshal Tito’s frontier, to facilitate an internal uprising. There are anti-Tito forces inside Yugoslavia and Russia could supply more bv parachute. 4

The Sunday Times diplomatic correspondent says the official British attitude to the Russo-Yugoslav dispute is that of an onlooker but there are strong reasons for "keeping Tito going,” one of

the strongest being that Greece benefited greatly, from the closing of the Yugoslav-Greek border. The Associated Press correspondent in Belgrade says a statement issued through the Yugoslav Slinislry of Information declares: “The British United Press yesterday printed news from ‘official Yugoslav sources’ to the effect that the Yugoslav Government is supposed to be considering the possioility of an invasion of Yugoslavia by Russian trooDS. It is officially stated that news to this effect that Yugoslav official circles made such statements is a fabrication and arbitrary guesswork o~ the correspondent of the British United Press in Belgrade.” The Associated Press correspondent In Moscow says that Pravda today predicted that Marshal Tito’s Yugoslav regime would soon be swept away.