20011948 Speech made by Mr. Gromyko, Representative of USSR, in the Security Council Meeting on Draft Resolution held on 20th January 1948
20011948 Speech made by Mr. Gromyko, Representative of USSR, in the Security Council Meeting on Draft Resolution held on 20th January 1948
I too note with satisfaction that India and Pakistan have expressed their readiness to settle this question peaceably by establishing good-neighbourly relations between them. That is undoubtedly a very significant fact. I can fully understand, therefore, the satisfaction with which the members of the Security Council have greeted the statement that India and Pakistan are ready to settle this question by peaceful means.
My delegation cannot, however, share the opinions of the other representatives in the Security Council as to the principle underlying the formation of the commission. It is proposed that the commission be established on the same principle as the Committee of Good Offices on the Indonesian Question. Each of the parties to the dispute would choose a country to represent it; the two countries selected would choose a third. Thus, the commission would appear formally to be a Security Council commission, but it would really be quite independent of the Security Council, and would act without any reference to the latter, as the connexion between it and the Security Council would exist only on paper. We have had an example of this in the composition and work of the Indonesian Committee. That Committee has been at work for several months already, but the Security Council does not in point of fact know what it is doing.
- receive from Indonesia quite casual, fragmentary communications from the Chairman of the Committee of Good Offices, from which it is impossible to form anything like a complete picture of the situation there. It is reasonable to believe that the position would be the same, or nearly the same ,in the case of the commission proposed by the Belgian representative. If the Security Council decides to set up a commission, then in my opinion it should be a Security Council Commission, composed of three, five or eleven States represented in the Council. It would then be clear to everyone that the Security Council had decided to investigate the dispute because it considered that it deserved attention and because the situation which had arisen in Jammu and Kashmir was sufficiently serious to warrant the Security Council's investigating the question. The very fact that it had been decided toinvestigate the matter would justify the appointment of a Security Council commission, in other words (let me emphasize this), a commission composed of State members of the Security Council.
While, therefore, expressing satisfaction that India and Pakistan are now ready to settle this dispute in a spirit conducive to good-neighbourly relations, I cannot agree with the principle underlying the formation of the commission recommended in the Belgian resolution, although I would have no -objection to the formation of a commission as such composed of State members of the Security Council.
If this proposal is put to the vote, the Soviet delegation, for the reasons which I have explained, will be compelled to abstain. Of course we hope that the dispute between India and Pakistan will be settled no matter how such settlement is achieved, whether by direct negotiations, with the help of some sort of commission, or by any other means.
What I have said about the point on which I disagree with the Belgian proposal refers only, as I have already said, to the principle on which it is suggested that the commission should be established.
(SCOR, 3rd Year, Mtg. no. 230, pp. 139-140)
May I say a few words about the Colombian representative's remarks? I to notice that the commission set up in connexion, with the Indonesian question differs somewhat from the commission proposed by the Belgian representative. That difference, however, is not to the advantage of the Belgian proposal. The resolution on the Indonesian Committee states that that Com rnittee should be made up of members of the Security Council,, whereas this is not even mentioned in the Belgian resolution. The Indonesian Committee is a Security Council committee only in form but not in fact. The new commission not a Security Council commission either in form or in fact. Although on paper there appears to be some sort of formal connexon between the Security Council and the commission, in actual fact there is no such connexon.
(SCOR, 3rd Year, Mtg. no. 230, p. 142)