02121957 Text of the speech made by Mr. Krishna Menon (India) in the Security Council meeting No. 808 held on 2 December, 1957.

02121957 Text of the speech made by Mr. Krishna Menon (India) in the Security Council meeting No. 808 held on 2 December, 1957.

I presume that this will be the last of the present series of meetings on this subject. Therefore, I consider it my duty and my privilege to express our thanks to the previous President of the Council, under whose presidency the bulk of this subject was discussed, and also to convey to you, Mr. President, our good wishes, even though India is not a member of Council.

As far as the resolution is concerned, resolutions are drafted, submitted, amended and passed by members of the Council; we are the recipients of them, and our Governments will have to deal with them as they are communicated to us. In the earlier meetings of the present series, when there were reasons to think that the resolution might conform more closely to the purposes of the United Nations Charter, or might be much the other way, we have stated at all times that, so far as the Government of India is concerned, the hospitality of our country is always open. If your predecessor in office, Mr. President, had been placed in a position similar to that in which Mr. Jarring was placed, and had come to India, he would have been welcomed in our land, in spite of the fact that his country is a military ally of one of the parties, and as an Asian he would have been doubly welcomed. Therefore, as far as welcoming anyone is concerned, Mr. Graham's visit, subject to our political and parliamentary convenience and to such arrangements as are possible, will meet with no objection and, what is more, we will always welcome Mr. Graham, as a person, to our country.

Now we come to the subject of the draft resolution. I cannot speak on this because the Council has taken a vote. On behalf of the Government of India, during several meetings I submitted arguments to the Council, whether well or not so well, and on 21 November, after the resolution had been submitted, it was stated that the parties had presented new points of view [805th meeting, para. 82] However that may be, none of that has altered the situation. therefore, to analyze this resolution. We do not intend, I am authorized by and asked to state on behalf of the Government of India that we do not accept the resolution. We have accepted no resolutions except the Council resolution of 17 January 1948, and the Commission's resolutions of 13 August 1948 and 5 January 1949. One of the reasons why I have no wish to go into this amended resolution is that it would really be in the nature of an inquest. The Council has passed it and has made its decision. Secondly, we do not want the traditional hospitality of our country to Mr. Graham to be mixed up with any question of discussing this matter.

I have very great difficulty in understanding some parts of the resolution. One part of the resolution contradicts another, and the representative of the United States has not made it any easier by his recent explanation. But, so far as we can see it, the operative part of the draft resolution forms the terms of reference. The preambular paragraphs have some value, and we shall take that into account. Operative paragraph 1 reiterates the Security Council resolution of 17 January 1948 in your terms, but no reiteration is required so far as we are concerned.

I am authorized by the Government of India to say that, as on previous occasions, even on the occasion of the resolution which enabled Mr. Jarring to go to India, there was no question of our acceptance of, no question of our acquiescing in, what has been put in this resolution. We shall offer the traditional hospitality of our country to Mr. Graham, if he goes there.

As I have said from the beginning, we did not bring this question here in the context of the cold war. We have no desire for the cold war to be the dividing line in this matter. It does not lie in our hands.

The Council has seen fit to adopt the amended resolution, and it is before the world and before the Government of India. In quite a telling way, there is a difference between the original resolution as submitted by the five countries and the resolution as amended by the representative of Sweden. I have already expressed our appreciation of the efforts of the representative of Sweden, in so far as those efforts were intended to bring the resolution more in line with his report. That is how I understand it, but I regret to say that it does not really bring the resolution in line with his report. However, that does not take away from the effort or from the motive. Therefore, I hope that he will accept, both on his behalf and on behalf of his country, our gratitude with regard to that.

I will communicate the resolution to the Government of India, but I want to place it on record that the only resolution we have accepted is the resolution of 17 January 1948, and we are engaged by the two resolutions of the Commission for India and Pakistan in the terms that I have recited to this Council so many times. That is our position.

The Government of India has also asked me to say that our non-acceptance is not a matter of habit, as it were. The resolution that we could accept-and one which, I hope, the Council will, in time, adopt-would be a resolution in terms of the United Nations Charter, calling upon the aggressor to vacate the aggression. Such a resolution we shall accept and, following that, we would be willing-and not only willing; it would be our duty-to try to further the purposes of the Charter and the purposes of this Council. We had hoped that we would not have to talk about acceptance, but it has been put to us by the Council. Acceptance is not provided anywhere in the Charter, but if the purpose of the resolution is to enable someone else to come and talk to the Government of India, we certainly shall not be wanting in hospitality. We shall speak in the terms which I have presented here and which are the views of the Government of India :

It only remains for me to thank the members of the Council for the patience with which they have listened to our very lengthy presentation of this case, but so far as our people are concerned, this issue is one of the invasions of our country; and that invasion must terminate.