REFUSED SEATS

Waikato Times, Volume 129, Issue 21583, 20 November 1941, Page 5

REFUSED SEATS

M. LITVINOFF HELD UP INCIDENT AT TEHERAN PROFUSE APOLOGIES ( United Press Assn.—Elcc. Tel. Copyright) (Received Nov. 20, noon) LONDON, Nov. 19 The British Overseas Air Corporation refused M. Litvinoff, Russian Ambassador to the United States, and his wife seats on a plane leaving Teheran this morning for Cairo. It allowed the plane to take off, leaving M. Litvinoff standing at the airport. The Teheran correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that M. Litvinoff and his wife arrived at the aerodrome a quarter of an hour before the take-off, accompanied by the Soviet Ambassador at Teheran, M. Smirnoff. It is stated M. and Madame Litvinoff were promised a passage, but at the plane steps they were informed that all seats had been taken.

The plane carried a British Legation counsellor, a former British Legation attache, and six other British passengers. After the plane had left the British Ambassador apologised profusely to M. Litvinoff and also called at the Soviet Embassy, expressed regrets, and promised that permission would be given for a Soviet plane to fly M. and Madame Litvinoff to Egypt. A British Overseas Airways official in London stated that the corporation had nothing to do with the allocation of seats on its planes.

BRITAIN AND VICHY SEIZURE OF HOSTAGES (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Couyrijflit) (Received Nov. 20, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, Nov. 19 Mr Anthony Eden, answering a question in the House of Commons regarding the reason for the internment in Syria of seven French citizens, for which action the Vichy Government interned fourteen Englishmen, said the French citizens were interned in Syria by the Free French as hostages for an equal number of Frenchmen who were sent by the Vichy authorities from Syria to France before the Syrian armistice because they wished to join the Free French movement. While negotiations were still in progress the Vichy Government arrested fourteen British subjects. It had been made clear that whatever be the outcome of the negotiations, which were continuing, the release of the Vichy citizens in Syria was contingent upon the simultaneous release of British subjects in France.