U.N.O. DECISION TO CHECK UP FORCES OF MEMBER STATES

Grey River Argus, 25 February 1949, Page 5

U.N.O. DECISION TO CHECK UP FORCES OF MEMBER STATES

(Roc. 10.10 NEW YORK, Feb. 23 The United Nations Commission on Conventional Armaments has decided, in the face of Russian objections, to outline methods for a world-wide inventory of national armed forces and arms, excluding atom 'bombs. The U.N. General Assembly last year directed the Commission to formulate proposals for receipt, checking, and publication, by an international organ of control within the framework of the Security Council, of full information to be supplied by the member states of their effectives and conventional armaments.

M. Jacob Malik (Russia) to-day revived an old Russian proposal that such an inventory should be made only after the Security Council's five permanent members should agree to reduce their armed forces and arms by one-third within one year, and, at the same time, to destroy atom bomb stock piles. Any Commission inventory plan would have to be approved by the Security Council, where each of the five permanent members has a veto.