INFORMAL TALKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26034, 24 December 1945, Page 7

INFORMAL TALKS

FOREIGN MINISTERS GOOD PROGRESS MADE POSITIVE DISCUSSIONS (.Rec. 10.20 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 22. The Foreign Ministers are holding another informal meeting to-day following good progress during the four hours’ talks yesterday, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. It is authoritatively stated that informal meetings give the Ministers more freedom of approach and enable them to talk more frankly. The Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press says experts were excluded from the meeting yesterday, only interpreters accompanying the principals. Well-informed circles state that positive considerations are uppermost in the discussions between the Big Three Foreign Ministers and that negative aspects are receding into the background, says the Exchange Telegraph’s Moscow correspondent. An informed American source said the conference might be over by Christmas. Unofficial comments on the conference were “ a considerable, degree of understanding has been reached on a number of problems,” and, more guardedly, <“ discussions have progressed to the positive stage.” The first British comment was laconic and unrevealing. It merely said: “ Conversations are frank and friendly.” According to Moscow radio the Central Committee of E.A.M. sent to the three Allied Foreign Ministers in Moscow a report stating that “ armed Royalist Fascist gangs ” in Greqce have been spreading terror with impunity, and more than 1000 Democrats have been killed in the last nine months. The report adds that foreign interference is preventing Greece’s democratic development, and the presence of foreign Troops is steadily becoming more undesirable.