KURILE ISLES

Grey River Argus, 14 February 1946, Page 7

KURILE ISLES

SECRET BIG THREE AGREEMENT WASHINGTON, Fob. 11. The State Department has published the Yalta Agreement regarding the Kuriles. Firstly, the status quo of Outer Mongolia shall be preserved; secondly, Russia’s former rights violated by Japan in 1940, shall be restored as follows: Squthern Sakhalin will, as adjacent islands, be returned to Russia; Dairen commercial port shall be internationalised and Soviet interests safeguarded with Port Arthur restored as a naval base to Russia. The Chinese eastern railway and the South Manchurian railway providing an outlet to Dairen, shall be handed over to Russia. The agreement says that it is understood that the agreement concerning Outer Mongolian ports and the railway will require General Chiang Kai-shek’s concurrence. President Roosevelt agreed to take measures to obtain such concurrence. The Soviet Union expressed readiness to conclude with the Chinese National Government a pact of friendship and alliance between China and Russia, to render China assistance for the purpose of liberating China from the Japanese yoke. In publishing the text of the Yalta Agreement, Secretary J. Byrnes issued a statement drawing attention to the fact that China and Russia were in no way controlled thereby, but governed entirely by the Chinese-Soviet treaty of August 14 and subsequent agreements between them. He added that there was a good reason why President Roosevelt, Mr. Churchill and M. Stalin regarded the agreement as highly secret, because if the Japanese had learned of it before the war ended, they woud immediatey have attacked Russia, necessitating the removal of Russian troops from the Eastern Front and making the task of American armies in Europe more difficult and costly.