AFTER ROME TALKS

Grey River Argus, 14 March 1940, Page 8

AFTER ROME TALKS

Situation Unaltered [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.J LONDON, March 12. Herr Von <Ribbentrop left Rome for Berlin at 9.30. He was farswellcd by Count Ciano. ROME, March 12. Dr. Gayda said that conversations between Herr Von Ribbentrop and Signor Mussolini were necessary, alter six months of war, in order to inform Italy of Germany’s-intentions before a more act ve phase of the struggle; also to enable the Axis Powers to examine the recent international events, including Russia’s inexplicably hostile attitude towards Italy, which was now somewhat clarified. It was affirmed that the essent.al cb • ject of the war must- be the conclusion of a better peace than previously. Italy declared that this was impossible, unless, a vast European reconstruction recognised her legitimate rights and interests. Great cordiality and realism marked the talks.

BRITISH VIEW. RUGBY, March 12. A common feature in the otherwise variegated pattern of news reports reaching London from Rome, ol Herr Von Ribbentrop’s interview yesterday with the Pope—or audience which the Vatican has been at pains to emphasise was granted at the special request of the Reich—is that Herr Von Ribbentrop saw Count Ciano and Signor Mussolini again, before leaving Rome. Observers in London jioint out that if Herr Von Ribbentrop’s sudden descent on Rome, in the middie of the Soviet-Finnish talks, and before Mr. Welles’s second visit, was intended to produce some striking manifestation, designed to recapture for Germany the diplomatic initiative which, since the ill-starred Moscow pact, has passed to other hands, the terms of the uninformative non-committal statement issued at the end of the Ger-man-Italian talks, with its no more than formal tribute to the spirit of the pact, can only represent the V" vere disappointment of Nazi hopes. GERMAN COMMENT. LONDON, March 12. German newspapers make much of the Rome talks, going a good deal further than those in Rome. They refer to the great cordiality which marked the conversations, and speak of “this new sign of German-Italian comradeship.”