TEHERAN INCIDENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 November 1941, Page 5

TEHERAN INCIDENT

WHY LITVINOV WAS LEFT ON AIRPORT MR EDEN’S EXPLANATION. MERELY AN UNFORTUNATE MISUNDERSTANDING. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 26. Replying to a question in the House of Commons concerning the unfortunate misunderstanding which resulted in the new Soviet Ambassador to American, M. Litvinov, being held up in Teheran, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Eden, stated that the counsellor of the British Legation in Teheran was present at the aerodrome at the time of the departure of the British Overseas Airways Corporation aeroplane by which M. Litvinov and his party were due to depart, and in which the counsellor himself had a seat.

Owing, however, to an unfortunate misunderstanding, the counsellor was informed that M. Litvinov had left by a Royal Air Force machine the previous day, as originally arranged. The corporation’s plane left with its full complement of passengers a little ahead of schedule, and M. Litvinov did not arrive at the aerodrome until after its departure. The question of resigning seats did not, therefore, arise. Any suggestion that M. Litvinov was refused a place in the plane or that he was in any way discourteously treated by any official either of the Legation or of British Overseas Airways Corporation, was quite devoid of foundation. “I have expressed to M. Litvinov my own deep personal regrets for the incident, for which I accept full responsibility,” Mr Eden said. Concerning a further question on the co-operation between British and Soviet officials in Teheran, Mr Eden said that the co-operation “was and is most satisfactory, and that our Minister is in close consultation with the Soviet Ambassador on all matters involving Allied policy in Persia.”