795.00/4–1051
The British Embassy to the Department of State
Text of Suggested Declaration
[Concerning Korea]
We members of the United Nations who have furnished aid in the field to the Republic of Korea desire to re-affirm our objectives in Korea.
The purpose of the present campaign is to resist aggression. We covet no territorial or other advantages for ourselves and our only aim is to bring about a free and independent Korea as set out in the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations and subsequently endorsed by the United Nations.
We proclaim our continued adherence to this policy and our readiness to pursue this objective by peaceful means through negotiation. We affirm our intention to prevent, as far as it lies within our power, the spread of hostilities beyond Korea.
In our earnest desire to remove this threat to world peace, to relieve the sufferings of the war ravaged Korean people and to achieve the early withdrawal of all foreign forces in Korea so that the Korean people may work out their own destiny free from all foreign interference, we ask for the immediate cessation of hostilities in Korea so that a way may be found to achieve a peaceful settlement of the problems of that unfortunate country.
[Page 329]We make the following proposals:
- (a)
- A conference should be held at an early date of representatives of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, People’s Republic of China, U.S.S.R., and India.
- (b)
- The conference should immediately appoint a Cease-Fire Committee consisting of the President of the General Assembly and representatives of the United Nations Unified Command, including South Koreans, and of the Chinese and North Korean forces, with instructions to arrange an immediate cease-fire.
- (c)
- Once arrangements for a cease-fire had been completed, the conference should consider a peaceful solution of the Korean problem leading to the creation of a unified, independent and democratic Korean state with a constitution and a government based on free popular elections in which the will of the Korean people can be freely asserted.
- (d)
- The conference should at the same time consider arrangements for the withdrawal by appropriate stages of non-Korean armed forces from Korea.
- (e)
- The conference should also consider means of alleviating the sufferings and hardships of the Korean people and of restoring Korea’s economy.
It is our belief that these proposals offer a way of bringing about peace in Korea and of relieving the present tension in the Far East. It is our hope that they will be considered in the same spirit of sincerity in which they are offered and that a settlement in Korea will promote world peace and lead to a settlement of other disputes in the Far East by the same peaceful process of negotiation.