ATTITUDE OF RUSSIA

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28260, 24 April 1957, Page 18

ATTITUDE OF RUSSIA

Strong Criticism Of West (N.Z. Press Association Copyright) MOSCOW, April 22. The Soviet Government newspaper, “Izvestia,” is to publish tomorrow the correspondence which passed between Britain, France, and Russia on the eve of the action in Egypt last November, according to the head of the Press Department of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Mr L. Ilyichev. Mr Ilyichev told a press conference at Moscow today that the documents would be published by the Soviet Government in order “to give the world a clearer picture of the real attitude of the Western Powers towards the Middle East.”

Mr Ilyichev, whose press conference was reported by the Soviet News Agency, Tass, also told questioners that responsibility for a dangerous arms race rested with the Western Powers “in as much as they had stubbornly rejected all proposals which would help to avert the danger of atomic warfare.” The Soviet Union, on the other hand, had repeatedly stated that the question of discontinuing nuclear tests should be separated from the general problem of disarmament and settled independently of other disarmament problems. Mr Ilyichev said the correspondence showed that, “ . . . the Soviet Union, far from making any attempts to egg on any countries, exerted persistent efforts to prevent an armed conflict and to bring about a peaceful settlement of the disputes, taking into account the interests of all states and with full respect for the sovereignty and national rights of Egypt.” Middle East Proposal Mr Ilyichev said that, as was known, the Soviet Government in February this year addressed the governments of the United States, Britain and France with a Middle East proposal. This proposal was to work out and proclaim basic principles for the maintenance of peace and security in the Near and Middle East and non-interference in the internal affairs of this area. “But,” Mr Olyichev said, “the three Western governments having recourse to completely unsubstantiated arguments, have taken a negative attitude towards the latest peace-loving step of the Soviet Union.” Mr Ilyichev claimed that the course followed by the Western governments had already resulted in a further exacerbation of the situation in the Near and Middle East and had brought anxiety and fear into the life of the peoples there. Contrary to allegations in the West about Soviet motives in the Middle East, Russia “did not, and does not, pursue in that area or in any other areas any aims incompatible with the national interests of the peoples of those countries.” Mr Ilyichev said he thought the Euratom and Common Market agreements, recently signed in Rome by a group of Western countries including West Germany, would be very detrimental as regards the nrospects of uniting Germany on peaceful and democratic lines. The British and French Embassies in Moscow had been notified of the Soviet intention to print Suez correspondence, Mr Ilyichev said. The woman Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee, Mrs Ekaterina Furtseva, said today that the British, French, and Israeli attack on Egypt was one atterppt to > hinder the development of the people of Asia and Africa. “Colonialism” The Soviet Union believed that people still under the yoke of colonialism would become free and independent. “No force would be capable of re-establishing colonialism in Asia,” said Mrs Furtseva, who was speaking in the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on the occasion of the 87th anniversary of the Birth of Lenin. “Although in a bourgeois country there might exist general elections, many parties and a Parliamentary Opposition, in the main, policy is not adapted to the interests of the majority of the people but to that of an infinitesimal handful of multi-millionaires and millionaires who exploit the State apparatus for their own enrichment. “Was, for instance, the war against Egypt unleashed by the Governments of France and Britain in the interests of the French and British peoples?”