LAKE SUCCESS: Pakistan Foreign Minister, Chaudhri Mohammad Zafrullah Khan urged yesterday [Oct 1] that Libya be granted independence as soon as possible and asked that Eritrea, on the African east coast, also be granted independence if her people desire it.

He told the United Nations Political Com­mittee that he differed with the proposal of the United States, Britain and France and that the major portion of Eritrea be ceded to Ethiopia and aligned himself with Italian Foreign Minister Count Carlo Sfroza in favouring independence for that country. He asked: “If Eritrea is backward as some delegates have said it is, why should we hang this sack of razor blades around Ethiopia’s neck?” [The] Italian Foreign Minister … proposed that Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan should be given independence with some kind of federal union between the three.

[Meanwhile, according to news agencies in Lahore,] the view that Pakistan’s inte-rests demanded that the country should steer clear of both the present internatio-nal “power blocs” was expressed here this evening [Oct 2] by the General Secre-tary of the All-Pakistan Muslim League, Mr Mohammad Yusuf Khattak… .

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2024