STATEMENTS UNTRUE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21828, 15 December 1932, Page 9

STATEMENTS UNTRUE

SOVIET PAPER IZVESTIA EDITOR EXPRESSES REGRET. (British Official Wireless. I RUGBY. December 13 (Received Dec. 14, at 5.5 p.m.) Captain R. A. Eden, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, informed the House of Commons of the sequel to the recent vigorous protest in regard to the allegations published in the newspaper Izvcstia. He said that the Soviet Ambassador had made oral communication to the Permanent Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs to the effect that while the Soviet Government took responsibility only for official communications in the Izvestia, it desired to state in regard to this particular incident that it did not entertain, and had not at any time entertained, the suspicions of the Foreign Secretary and of the Foreign Office which w r ere expressed therein. On the contrary, it dissociated itself from such statements. The ambassador later repeated this declaration, and added that he himself had communicated with the editor of the Izvestia, who had now replied that he had been misled by one of his correspondents. He recognised that the statements concerned were inaccurate, and he wished to express regret for having published them. In these circumstances the British Government regarded the matter as closed.