660H.6131/20: Telegram
The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 12—11:20 a.m.]
524. Embassy’s 489, May 4, 11 a.m.6 Pravda and Izvestiya today announce the signature yesterday of a treaty of commerce and navigation between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia with an attached protocol concerning the trade representation of the Soviet Union in Yugoslavia and concerning the temporary trade delegation of Yugoslavia in the Soviet Union and of an agreement respecting trade turnover and payments for the years 1940 and 41 between the two countries. The papers state that the total trade turnover for 1940 and 41 on the basis of the latter agreement will amount to 176 million dinars and that the Soviet Union proposes to import copper concentrates of lead and of zinc ores, lard and other articles from Yugoslavia and to ship to Yugoslavia agricultural and other machinery, kerosene, cotton and other goods. These instruments were signed on behalf of the Soviet Union by Mikoyan7 and on behalf of Yugoslavia by Djordjevic8 and Obradovic.9 There are rumors that a Yugoslavia military mission is shortly expected in Moscow.
- Not printed; with reference to the Yugoslav-Soviet trade negotiations, it was here stated that it did not seem likely that the products mentioned during the conversations could form the basis of any considerable trade with the Soviet Union, and that it might be presumed that the chief aim of both Governments was the establishment of political relations (660H6131/16).↩
- Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, People’s Commissar for Foreign Trade of the Soviet Union.↩
- Milorad Djordjevich, former Minister of Finance of Yugoslavia.↩
- Sava Obradovich, Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry of Yugoslavia.↩