RUSSIAN NEGOTIATIONS WITH TURKEY

Otaki Mail, 22 December 1939, Page 4

RUSSIAN NEGOTIATIONS WITH TURKEY

BERLIN BLOCKED PACT The signing of the Anglo-French-Turkish Pact at Ankara was greeted in Paris as an important Allied diplomatic victory and a corresponding setback to Germany (wrote Mr. W. If. Chamberlin, staff correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, from Paris at the end of October). Le Temps which usually closely reflects the Quai d’Orsay viewpoint, says: ‘ ‘ Germany has just been compelled to submit to a diplomatic check to which it will be especially sensitive, since it deprives Germany of any prospect of finding in the Balkans, the Eastern Mediterranean, or the near East appreciable compensations for the exorbitant sacrifices which it was obliged to make to Soviet Russia in Eastern and North-eastern Europe.” New Stability Found Turkish fidelity to the obligations maintained despite strong Soviet pressure which compelled the Turkish Foreign Minister Sukru Saracolga to return from Moscow to Ankara on October 17 without signing a pact with Russia, was highly praised in the French press, and unquestionably- introduces a new element in the stability of Europe where the dictators have been redrawing the maps almost at will the last weeks. Germany now cannot invade Rumania without adding Turkey to the list of its enemies, and this seems to afford some security that the Balkaa States, all of which desire to remain out of war, can maintain neutrally and independence and perhaps avoid complete economic subservience to Germany. It is also observed in Paris that Turkey would not have signed the pact without confidence in Allied victory, and Turkish action is expected to exert a favourable influence on Italy. There is, however, a more disquieting aspect to the background of this pact. This is the Soviet-German diplomatic co-operation which finallystopped, or at least suspended, Mr. Saracoglu’s effort to find a basis for agreement with the Soviet Union. Upset by Germany .So while France and England have reason to congratulate themselves on the adhesion of Turkey as a friend and possibly as an ally which possesses a well-trained army of proved fighting quality and enjoys an admirable strategic position, this new evidence of German influence in Moscow would seem to afford little support for wishful thinking occasionally manifested here hoping for an early breach of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

The Stockholm conference with its .ssurance of the moral solidarity of the Scandinavian States and the threatened Finland was followed with attention and sympathy in Paris although it is recognised that France and England are unable to affect the course of events in North-eastern Europe. It is the general impression in diplomatic circles that Finland, while ready to make minor concessions such as the cession of islands in the Gulf of Finland, will not unresistingly- submit to the establishment of such a Soviet protectorate as has been established in Latvia, Estoaia and Lithuania, involving actual occupation of the country by Red troops. One hope finding expression in the French press is that an immediate threat to Finland and an indirect menace to the Scandinavian countries maymake Americans of Swedish and Norwegian origin less isolationist in sentiment.