761.93 Manchuria/162: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kirk) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 7—2:42 p.m.]
236. My telegram No. 234, August 7, noon.24 A member of the Japanese Embassy confirms the report that the Japanese Ambassador has been instructed by his Government to seek an interview with Litvinov and that the meeting would probably take place today. He was unable to divulge the purport of the instructions or state whether they related to a protest on the part of the Japanese in regard to the bombardment of Korean villages or to the general subject of the conflict.
The same official said that a few days ago the local Soviet authorities in Khabarovsk had demanded the closing of the Japanese Consulate General in that city and had requested the Consul General to leave immediately and that the Consul General had left under protest on August 6 for Vladivostok. He added that the closing of the Khabarovsk Consulate had been under consideration in connection with the request of the Soviet Government for the closing of several Japanese Consulates in the Far East, as has been previously reported, but that the present action of the local authorities had been taken without previous warning and in entirely arbitrary fashion.
- Not printed.↩