U.N. Offers to Mediate in Kashmir, United Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 19, 1948.

NEW YORK, Jan. 18 (U.P.)-A three-nation United Nations mediation team to settle the strife in Kashmir State was proposed to India and Pakistan today at a private conciliation conference ordered by the U. N. Security Council.

Authoritative sources revealed the proposal was laid before representatives of the feuding Moslem and Hindu states by Fernand Van Langenhove of Belgium, President of the Security Council and mediator at a week-end series of behind-the-scenes negotiations between India and Pakistan.

The sources said Pakistan indicated “a willingness” to accept the plan and India asked for time to consider it and report back at a later closed meeting early this evening or tomorrow.

Representatives of the two new Dominions and Van Langenhove sat down for the first of their series of week-end huddles yesterday, then met again this morning to hear the Belgian’s proposal.

DETAILS OF PLAN

Van Langenhove’s suggestion, patterned after the U. N. “good offices” commission which finally won a truce yesterday between warring forces of the Indonesian Republic and the Netherlands, was as follows.

1-The Security Council should establish a mediation commission with one of its members chosen by India, the second by Pakistan and the third, the chairman selected by the first two members. All three would be chosen from among the 57 U. N. countries.

2-The commission should travel to the scene of the fighting between Moslem invaders and Kashmir tribesmen, on the one hand, and troops of the Indian Army and the Princely Kashmir Army on the other hand.

3-It should try to “smooth over” differences which have led to the bloodshed, including conflicting Indian and Pakistan claims over which State Kashmir should join and the dispute over when and how to conduct a plebiscite among Kashmir’s 4,000,000 residents on their future status.

(Kaishmir’s Hindu ruler has chosen to accede to India under the partition program, but the final status has been left to a still-tobe-arranged plebiscite.)

4-During on-the-spot mediation efforts, the Security Council could be free to take any additional measures it believes necessary to put down the trouble and mend relations between the newly independent states.

SCOPE OF MEDIATION

A major obstacle to agreement on the mediation plan was reported reliably to be the question of its scope.

Pakistan’s tentative acceptance of the Belgian proposal was believed to be based on an understanding the commission would consider all out-standing differences between Pakistan and India, not just the Kashmir trouble.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Sir Mohammed Zafrullah Khan told the U. N. Security Council Friday and Saturday his government could not agree to isolating the Kashmir incident from the rest of the problems.

India has maintained, however, that it brought only the Kashmir trouble before the U. N. with its complaint against Pakistan and that this is the matter requiring urgent Security Council attention.