§ Major Beamishasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will detail the restrictions as regards movement placed on the British Ambassador and his staff in Moscow; and why similar restrictions have not been placed on the Soviet Ambassador and his staff in London.
§ Major Beamishasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will detail the restrictions as regards movement placed on the British Minister and his staff in Budapest; and why similar restrictions have not been placed on the Hungarian Minister and his staff in this country.
§ Major Beamishasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will detail the restrictions as regards movement placed on the British Minister and his staff in Sofia; and why similar restrictions have not been placed on the Bulgarian Minister and his staff in this country.
§ Major Beamishasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will detail the restrictions as regards movement placed on the British Minister and his staff in Bucharest; and why similar restrictions have not been placed on the Roumanian Minister and his staff in this country.
§ Mr. Ernest DaviesThe following are details of the restrictions referred to:
(a) Soviet Union
Since September, 1948, members of His Majesty's Embassy in Moscow, in common with other foreign representatives, have not been allowed to travel outside a 30-mile radius from Moscow without first giving the Soviet authorities full details of the proposed journey. Much of the area within the 30-mile radius, including most of the main roads out of the city, is also completely out of bounds to them. Outside the 30-mile limit, the Soviet authorities have placed numerous and large areas of the Soviet Union similarly 76W out of bounds. The territories to which access is prohibited include Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. To the East of the lower reaches of the Volga, the five Central Asian Republics are out of bounds covering an area of no less than 1,497,000 square miles. Access to Kiev and Minsk, the capitals of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Republics (both of which are members of the United Nations) is withheld by the Soviet authorities. The full list of forbidden places and areas is too lengthy for convenient reproduction, but its extent can be gauged from the details already given and from the last item, viz. "all points situated in the frontier zone."
(b) Hungary
No restrictions as regards movements have so far been placed on His Majesty's Minister or his staff.
(c) Bulgaria
His Majesty's Minister and his staff are prohibited from entering an area which amounts to about one-third of the country. Outside these areas His Majesty's Minister is, in theory, free to travel as he wishes, but he is expected to inform the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs of his movements. Subordinate diplomatic staff have to inform the Ministry twenty-four hours in advance of any intended journey outside the immediate surroundings of Sofia, and must obtain a letter from the Ministry that they have been so informed. Non-diplomatic staff have to obtain a similar authorisation forty-eight hours in advance.
(d) Roumania
The greater part of the country has been placed out of bounds to His Majesty's Minister and to members of his staff. Special permission to travel on official business may in theory be obtained from the Roumanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but in practice His Majesty's Legation have always met with the greatest obstruction.
As regards the second part of the Questions, His Majesty's Government take a serious view of the restrictions in regard to travel and other matters to which His Majesty's representatives are subjected in the countries referred to. Such practices are totally inconsistent with the standards of international behaviour which have 77W been generally accepted in the past and 'arte still observed in countries whose regimes are not based on secrecy.
His Majesty's Government have hitherto refrained from taking any retaliatory action of a similar nature, but whether this one-sided state of affairs can be allowed to continue indefinitely is under consideration.