'EXTREMELY DOUBTFUL'

Northern Advocate, 6 March 1947, Page 5

'EXTREMELY DOUBTFUL'

— 0 German Peace Treaty

(Rec. 1 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Mai'. 5. The Secretary of State (Mr Marshall) left by air for Moscow today. Before boarding the aircraft Mr Marshall told pressmen he hoped that the Foreign Ministers’ Conference could write a peace treaty for Austria but expressed the opinion that it was “extremely doubtful’’ that a German treaty could be completed. He added: “We recognise the Moscow negotiations will be extremely difficult and their consequences momentous.” Mr Marshall explained he was hopeful about the Austrian treaty because of progress made by Foreign Ministers’ deputies in London but “the situation regarding, the German issue is quite different, as the deputies so far have only been engaged in listening to statements of the Allied countries concerned other than the Big Four Therefore we have yet to discuss and reach agreement on the great fundamentals which will be the basis for the treaty regarding Germany. “If we are successful in reaching agreement on the major fundamental principles I will be very much pleased, but it would appear now extremely doubtful whether the actual treaty draft can be completed at this conference,” he concluded. “We owe a great responsibility to the American people in the endeavour to secure peace.” China Satisfied (Rec. 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 5. China's insistence that no questions concerning China or the Far East be considered at the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers without China’s prior agreement had been satisfactorily acknowledged. China had sent Notes with this request to Russia, the United States, Britain and France. A Foreign Office spokesman said that none of the answers, including one from Russia, gave any indication of disagreement with China’s position.