RUSSIA GIVES REPLY

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 322, 2 January 1937, Page 5

RUSSIA GIVES REPLY

NON-INTERVENTION. ITALY INDEFINITE Russia Claims Other Troops Are Official. Press Association—Copyright. Received 9.30 p.m. London, Dec. 31. Lord Plymouth has received the Italian Embassy’s Note indicating, the Italjan standpoint regarding volunteers for- Spain. The Note says that Italy is willing to give the volunteers question priority provided other aspects of “indirect intervention” are considered by the London committee, M. Litvinoff, Russian Foreign Minister, addressing the British and French Governments, states that Russia shares their alarm regarding the Spanish developments in connection with the replenishment of the rebel forces by Germans and Italians, which Russia believes are not volunteers but formally recruited and armed men sent to Spain. Russia considers it desirable that Spaniards exclusively should settle the Spanish dispute and that foreign elements must be reduced to a minimum, if -fit is impossible to eliminate them. The Soviet will accept the British and French appeal to prohibit volunteers going to Spain on condition that effective control is immediately exercised independently of the rebel gen- . .erals’ attitude and that the signatories to the agreement will observe the arrival of the so-called volunteers and publish the facts and also prevent the acceleration of the present dispatch of them.