TURKEY'S POSITION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 59, 10 March 1944, Page 5

TURKEY'S POSITION

IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS NOW NOT EXPECTED Recd. 11 p.m. Washington. March 9. While hopes persist that Turkey may yet reach an understanding witn Britain and play an active role in the war, diplomatic quarters believe that no in portant developments can be expected in the Balkans while the Channel invasion is pending. Joseph Harsch, in the Christian Science Monitor, says: “The British decision to nalt war shipments to Turkey i.-. an indication of British disappointment over another possible opportunity which has not developed —because of American and Russian 'lhe strengthening of Turkey \as a springboard for a Balkan campaign has been a cherished British coi’.c pt. as the Burma campaign has bten a favoured American concept. In a more dhect sense the shutting off of arms shipments to Turkey resulted from Turkish dissatisfaction with the scheduled amounts, but behind that lay the fact that these scheduled amounts had been whittled down by higher priority undertakings to a point where there was little meaning in what was left. If there was to be no Balkans campaign the only value in strengthening Turkey was to cona solidate Turkish goodwill. When re- * suits in goodwill failed to justify the expenditure the deal was called off.’’ The Scripps Howard papers’ foreign editor, William Simms, says: “Rightly or wrongly, there is a deep-seated impression in the United States that Russia as a whole opposed British and American activities in the Balkans. 9 and Ankara. Washington and London deferred to the Soviet wishes. Russia is believed to have demanded concentration on a cross-Channel invasion, leaving the Balkans until such time as Russia was free to direct the enterprise.” -Supporting British ideas. Simms says: “It is considered that Turkey's entrance into the war on the side or the Allies would be catastronhic for Hitler, and the position nf Hungary. Rumania and Bulgaria would swiftly become hopeless.