DISAGREEMENT ON ITALY

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24907, 21 June 1946, Page 7

DISAGREEMENT ON ITALY

FOREIGN MINISTERS’ DISCUSSIONS

“NIGGARDLY APPROACH” BY DELEGATES LONDON, June 19. The Foreign Ministers; in a twohour meeting, failed to agree on two economic clauses in the Italian draft treaty—the clauses affecting the restitution of United Nations property and compensation for Allied nationals who Wffered physical injury in Italy. Reuter’s correspondent in Paris pays that they adjourned the discussion until to-morrow. However, when the question came op of Italian property in territories ceded to the United Nations under tile peace treaty, they agreed in principle that the nation taking over such territory should be allowed to assume Italian State property without payment The rights of Italian individuals would be respected on the lame basis as those of other nationals. Reuter’s correspondent says that there .is widespread disappointnient frith the negative results of the Ministers’ discussions on Italian reparations yesterday, and also with what appears to be the niggardly approach of individual delegates to the problem. “The inescapable fact is that the Big Four spend the whole meeting haggling obstinately about sums which by any standards of war-time expenditure appear an absurdly small price to pay for agreement among the Great Powers,’’ says the correspondent. -

“The inevitable conclusion is that I two major forces of misunderstanding are at play in the reparations issue:— “(1) A tug of war between rival conceptions of how Italy’s post-war production should be orientated within the general framework of European trade. Mutual failure to understand the psychological importance attached by the Russian and Western Allies to '■arious aspects of this question. ’‘Opposition on Principle’* ‘•British and American opposition to the payment of reparations to Russia from current production is dictated py principle, rather than by unwillttgness to see Russia acquire £25.000,000 worth of reparations. “Conversely, the Russian insistence J increasingly clearly linked with the desire to lay the foundations of longterm commercial ties with Italy which Would enable Russia to canalise Italian Reduction into channels fitting into me over-all scheme of Russian trade in fi’urope. “It could be argued that the Russian demand would involve only relatively B ®all commitments over a six-year griod. but these would become exsignificant if fortified subsequently by a bilateral Russian-Italian trade pact on the pattern of those reFini'- y onc luded with the Balkans and “Such an ultimate objective would eiso explain the keen Russian interest •to internal Italian political trends and «uss’an insistence that the agenda «°nuld include a searching scrutiny .X s tens of a Fascist revival. a s a result of this tug of war. ur-ds herself in the enviable. and ~* !^ x Pected oosition for a vanquished gatwn of being assiduously courted two opposing groups of victors. Russian Position * On a psychological plane it is unjjstandable that Russia, acutely conSmB s the war damage suffered the Soviet Union, finds it* ingPlicable that Italy, whose armies «e claims destroyed five major Rustowns, should not pav what in the tion an view 1S onl y a token r epara - inl? er P has been a noticeable trend 581511 delegation circles during St 48 hours to appeal to the Ci? lls .h and Americans not to adhere w ngidly to the standpoints already

adopted on vital conference issues. The Russians, for the first time, acknowledge that the initial mistake was made in London last autumn, when the Foreign Ministers decided to approach the Trieste problem on ethnic grounds, since this did not take Jugoslavia’s outstanding war contribution sufficiently into account. “The head of the Press Relations Department of the Russian Foreign Office (Mr Konstantin Zinchenko) said he was prepared to see foreign correspondents daily and answer questions on the Russian point of view. International journalists during the last session in Paris had no contact whatever with the Russian delegation’s press attache.” The leader of the Italian delegation in Paris, the Marquis di Soragna, referring in an interview to the Austrian claims against Italy, said: “We want good relations with Austria,, but we do not see Why a country which fought against us during the last 20 months of the war when Italy was fighting for the Allies should demand territorial concessions from us.” He emphasised what he called the Italian Government’s “unbreakable faith in Italian sovereignty over the Italian population of Venezia Giulia, ’ and added that Italy considered herself entitled to be invested by the United Nations with trusteeship for her former colonies—the solution which the French nave proposed and which the Russians will probably support.