MOLOTOV ASKED TO BE FRANK

Chronicle (Levin), 4 May 1946, Page 5

MOLOTOV ASKED TO BE FRANK

Press. Assn.-

AEOUT RDSSiA'S POllC* III EUROPE

By Telegrayh .

V ■Copyright

Tlece.ved Friday, 8.40 p.m. LONDON, May 3. At yesterday's informal meeting, aceording to the Daily Mail's diplomatie eorrespondent from Paris, Mv. Byraes (Ameriea) invited 31 r. Moiotov" to state fr-ankly and i'earlessly the objoets oi' the Jhissian policy in Europe. ls it expansionist, Mr. Byrnes asked, oi- does Bussia want to cooperate with the others in the peaee huilding. He reitcrated Ar.ic riea'p, offer of a twenty-fiYe year mutual aid pact, asking Mr. Moiotov it JRussia was l-eady to sign it. Finally he asked 31 r. 31olotov to say bluntly why Russia felt MM-urity was menaeed and by whom. It was the first piee'e oT-straight talking since the conferenee opened, the eorrespondent says, but it does not appear to have produeed much enlightenment i'rorn 31 r. Moiotov whose eontinned inlransigeanee is preventing- real progress. There is alread-y talk ihat it' the paee does not quieken, the Ameriean del.egation may retum home and make separate peaee treaties. Some more politicallv minded members ot the delegation are report ed as saying- it is time the l'nited States. vvitih a)l h.er- power, ct-ased being pushed around, pi-esinnal)ly by Rnssia.

The first informal meeting of the Foreign Ministers tnled at'tor nearly three Koura in an eflort. to escape the iuhnitted deadlock into which the first aw—K 's- formal meetings landed the-con-j'l'i'eiice, says lieuter's Paris corresponlicni. The informal meetings were de-riii'-d on "in the interests of greater. iiiiili'i-standing and faster progress." The deadlock arose when Kussia op:»>sed tlie other Powers on the questier of the Allied mission to supervi'se tio* apprehension of the Italian war I'riniinals and other military clanses in the peaee treatv witli Italv. The eonference may now retreat into ciiinplete seereey, in which the Rus- ' sirius expeeted that it would lie con- ' ihi. ted from ihe start, and ohservers : foioider it is not likely that the back- ! •timimi talks to the Press will be con- ! timimi now that the stage of realistic Imrgaining has lieen reached. Tlie eonference so far has been the lcast secretive iuternational eonference for yeiirs. > Tlie Times' Paris eorrespondent eom- ' inents that the four Ministers cerlainlv covered much ground, but chiefly in hcdge-hopping;. They referred most of tlie more intricate matters to expert (•(inimittees, in which all the old politi-. cai differences over Italian reparations and the division of the Italian flect are inevitably cropping up in what I Houhi be purely teehnical discussions. 'J'lie coiiference lias not yet tackled a i wii'ier matter on which the Powers are jiiom acutely divided — for example. the ViMiozia Giulia frontier, apart. from ! Trie.-te. on which they faced four dif- j feient lines dravvn by four difierent l iiienibers of the commission which visit-, c(l the area. The lines have not yet lieen made publie, but it is learned that the Kussians would give far more of tlie area to Yugoslavia tlian the other PnWers.