The State Department cautiously indicated a measure of support today for Yugoslavian President Tito’s view that the Middle East’s problems are connected with European matters which are to be aired at a prospective European Security Conference.
Tito had said June 19 at a dinner in Warsaw given in his honor by Polish Communist Party leader Eduard Gierek that “more determined steps should be taken to bring about detente and to remove all causes of tension and alarm in the region of the Mediterranean.”
“These problems are linked,” the 80-year-old marshal said, “and should be directed towards detente spreading over increasingly large areas.” This was understood to mean the movements for closer relations by Washington with Moscow and Peking.
Tito made the statements in context of the “great successes” he said have been made in the Baltic Sea area and Central Europe. When asked by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency for the State Department’s views on the Tito statements, spokesman Charles Bray said that “We hope progress on one front in pursuit of peaceful cooperation might have spill-over benefits in other parts of the world. Time will be the test.” Bray cautioned that the European Security Conference discussions are far off saying, “We won’t even get into the exploratory phases before late fall.”
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