ARMS AID PROGRAMME

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27276, 30 December 1949, Page 5

ARMS AID PROGRAMME

Conditions For Britain’s Share NEGOTIATION OF BILATERAL AGREEMENT New Zealand Press Association—Reuter—Copyright Rec. 9 p.m. WASHINGTON, Dec. 28. Britain has agreed to negotiate a bilateral agreement with the United States laying down conditions under which Britain will receive her share of the United States 1,000,000,000-dollar Arms-for-Allies Programme. /The agreement ends several weeks of exploratory discussions between British and American officials in Washington in the course of which Britain was at one time prepared to go without her share of the Arms Programme rather than agree to certain conditions contained in the State Department’s tentative draft agreement.

State Department officials today said that the British Government had accepted new United States proposals as the basis for negotiating. Formal negotiations for the agreement were expected to begin in a few days. The State Department announced today, that the North Atlantic Council would meet in Washington on January 6 to consider a plan for the integrated defence of the North Atlantic area which was drawn up in Paris on December 1. Approval of the Paris recommendations by the North Atlantic Council is necessary before the flow of United States arms to the Atlantic Treaty countries can begin. Arms shipments under the mutual defence assistance programme could start immediately after President Truman, acting on the recommendation of the Atlantic Council, certified that a plan for the Integrated defence of the North Atlantic area existed.