DUCE'S ENVOYS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 October 1940, Page 5

DUCE'S ENVOYS

RECALLED FROM SYRIA IN DISGRACE NEW DELEGATES APPOINTED. DEMANDS TURNED DOWN. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON. October 2. Information lias leaked out that the five Italian generals who went to Syria to negotiate the surrender of the French mandate have been recalled in disgrace to Rome and been replaced by new delegates. Nearly all their demands were met with evasion or blank refusal. The Italians demanded the handing over of 500 planes, to which the High Commissioner, M. Puaux, replied that some of the planes had left for an unknown destination and others had been sold to the Government of Lebanon West Syria Republic. M. Puaux also informed the Italians that the air bases demanded by them were Lebanese property and could not be touched without the consent of the League of Nations. The Italians pressed for a reduction of the army to the pre-war size of 40,000, but were told that this would leave Syria defenceless. The latest development is that the Italian commission has begun to spread Fascist and Nazi influence im Syria. It is also making new demands which include permission to return to Syria for all Italians and Germans who had been expelled or had departed since the outbreak of the war, indemnities for all Italians and Germans arrested in Syria, and permission to publish an Italian newspaper in Beirut, and also that Italian and German youth organisations be permitted to resume their activities in Syria and Lebanon. As far as is known, the French authorities have not agreed to any of the foregoing demands.