Evening star., 1946-03-30

is student at Dartmouth.
| have not been completely unquali.
fed, but are subject to change ir
event of unforeseen circumstances.
Apparently negotiations on certain
matters are still proceeding between
the Soviet government and the Iran.
ian government, and the Council i
not Informed as to the exact status
of those negotiations.
Even if the Council should now
proceed to consider the substantive
issues involved in the dispute be-
tween the Soviet Union and Iran
and to recommend the withdrawal
Of Soviet troops as requested by Iran
Soviet troops could not be with
drawn from Iran in a substantially
shorter period of time than that
within which the Soviet government
has declared it to be its intention
to withdraw them.
But the members of the Council
must be solicitous to avoid any pos
sibility of the presence of Soviet
troops in Iran being used to in
fluence or coerce the government OF
Iran in negotiations with the Soviet
government.
An Action May Be Avoided.
IF the Council could obtain more
adequate and exact information re-
garding the status of the negotia-
tions between the Soviet govern
meut and the Iranian government
the Council might be able to satisfy
itself that the assurances of the
Soviet government as to the prompt
withdrawal of troops from Iran are
in fact for all practical purposes un-
conditional. In that even there
might be no need for the Council to
go into the substantive issues, pro-
vided it reserved the right to both
parties to have the same Immediately
taken up by the Council should
there be any developments which
threatened to retard the withdrawal
of troops
Il would suggest that the president
of the Council request the secretary
general to ascertain at once from
the Soviet government and the iran
ian government through their rep
resentatives and report to the Coun-
Gil at its meeting on Tuesday, April
2, the existing status of negotiations
between the two governments, and
particularly to ascertain from the
representative of the two govern.
mentS and report whether or not
the reported withdrawal of troops
is conditional upon the conclusion
of agreements between the two gov
ernments on other subjects.
With this information the Coun-
Gil will then be in much better posi-
tion to decide what should be the
next step"
The Council called Mr.. Ala to sit
with it yesterday and answer ques-
tions which had been asked him by
DR.. Lange at Wednesdays session
The first of these questions was
whether Mr.. Ala had received any
instructions from his government tc
oppose the delay asked by Russia
His answer was that his instructions
had been clear and broad, given him
through discretion to take such &C
ton as he deemed necessary to pro-
tect the interests of Iran.
| The second question dealt with
the matter of withdrawal of Soviet
troops from Iran. Ambassador Ala
said:
This is my answer: I have no
information, official or otherwise
that any Soviet troops have crossed
the border from Iran into Russia
do not doubt, as have said, that
Soviet troops have been moved from
certain localities of Iran at least to
other parts of Iran. However, that
does not dispose of the issue"
The Iranian Ambassador insisted
that there could be no negotiations
with Russia in the true sense while
Russian troops are in any part OF
Iran. He said that the Council should
have an assurance by the Soviet
government that all troops would be
evacuated, and that this evacuation
would be carried out "uncondition-
ally and without reference to any
collateral agreement or circum-
stances. foreseen or unforeseen"
In reply to third question Mr.
Ala said one of the reasons why the
Iranian Prime Minister instructed
him to refer the dispute to the
Council was his desire to be free
from pressure from any foreign gov
ernment in conducting the affairs
of his Office.
Mr.. Ala further stated that there
should be no postponement of the
Iranian complaint because nothing
has been settled by negotiation.