TRUCE MEETING IN LAOS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29503, 3 May 1961, Page 15

TRUCE MEETING IN LAOS

Talks Continue In Washington (WZ PA -Reuter—Copyright) BANGKOK, May 2. Diplomatic sources said today that representatives of the Royal Laotian Government and the pro-Communist Pathet rebels met today under a flag of truce to discuss a cease-fire in Laos. The sources said the meeting took place somewhere along the road between Vientiane and Luang Prabang—the administrative and Royal capitals of Laos. According to the sources, both sides also met yesterday.

President Kennedy will confer today with the National Security Council to help chart American leadership of the West on the critical issues of Laos and nuclear weapons testing. The council will meet for the fifth time in 11 days, amid a crisis atmosphere in Washington, heightened by deepening United States official suspicion of the Soviet Bloc’s intention to settle the two problems. Top military, intelligence and diplomatic advisers to the President attended meetings of the council, which directs the Centra! Intelligence Agency and co-ordinates United States policy moves. The council met for two hours at the White House yesterday and received a secret report on Laos. The council postponed til! today a conference on the Geneva talks, which are at present in recess, to set up a treaty banning nuclear weapons testing. President Kennedy recently said the outlook for a treaty was discouraging and there have been hints that the Administration may go ahead with underground explosions if there is a clear sign that the Soviet Union is unwilling to reach agreement. The extraordinary series of National Security Council meeting meant also that a critical decision on what to do in Laos still hung in the balance. American officials were dismayed at the steady losses sustained by the troops of the American-supported Boun Oum regime in Laos, which is fighting the Pathet Lao rebels, pro-Communists who insist that the neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma still is the legal Prime Minister of the South-east Asian kingdom. There was hope in the capital that the Communists might yet agree to a ceasefire.

But United States officials were doubtful whether the goal of a neutral independent Laos could be reached under the steady military push of the insurgents. Rebel attacks on Government positions in Laos had “rather suddenly” taken a professional character, because of increased North Vietnamese aid to the Pathet Lao. President Kennedy’s Ambassador-at-Large, Mr Averell Harriman. said yesterday. Mr Harriman told a press conference that from information he had been given by the Deputy Prime Minister, General Phoumi Nosavan, and Western military observers he was satisfied that there was “quite obvious intervention with equipment and personnel by the Communists.”

He pledged the United States’ full support to the Laotian Government and said he was returning to Washing-

ton to report to President Kennedy. Mr Harriman said the Laotian Government was making every effort to bring about a cease-fire and in this it had the full support of the United States. Mr Harriman will fly to Saigon today for talks with President Ngo Dinh Diem, of South Vietnam and will pay a flying visit to Cambodia on Wednesday to talk with Prince Norodom Sihanouk before flying back to Washington.

A New Delhi message says that the three-nation International Control Commission for Laos yesterday sent urgent recommendations to Britain and the Soviet Union proposing action to be taken immediately a Laos truce is agreed. A senior Western diplomat, commenting on reports from Laos, said: "The situation now looks promising.” Diplomats from India. Canada and Poland, members of the commission, agreed unanimously on the text of a report on their “tasks and functions,” which was addressed to Britain and the Soviet Union. The text was not disclosed tn New Delhi.

The commission. reconvened last week for the first time in three years, is now virtually adjourned until a cease-fire is reached and it gets orders to move. In Vientiane. King Savang Vatthana of Laos was reported to be opposed to any international conference to settle the civil war in his Indo-China kingdom. The Cambodian Head of State (Prince Norodom Sihanouk) told a Vientiane press conference that the King had told him any conference other than a conference of Laotians was "illegal” and that at any foreign conference "Laos would be judged as a guilty nation by a tribunal." The Prince said that in view of King Savang’s attitude he was withdrawing his sponsorship for a 14-nation conference on Laos, and his suggestion that various Lao factions should meet in his capital. Phnom Penh, to discuss cease-fire terms. The Prince’s proposal for a 14-nation conference had been taken up by Britain and the Soviet Union, who have now called for a Laos ceasefire and an international conference in Geneva on Mav 12.