FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1 9 4.6, VOLUME VI



impossible to stand still or merely to mark time; therefore, that all who
are concerned with problem of shaping relations to meet the require-
ments of a peace must now renew search for effective formula.
  I asked whether he did not think that holding general elections for
new Assembly after termination on March 28 of present session of 26th
Ordinary Assembly would prove best way out. His reply was signifi-
cant, I think, and should, I believe, cause Department to act with great-
est caution with respect to any impulse that might exist to judge
opposition harshly in its present refusal to enter Government except on
terms set forth in its message of January 6 (mytel 20, January 7 15).
Stainov said that under constitution the present Assembly should
normally continue for 4 years, that the constitutional precedents for
continuance of Ordinary Assembly to the normal end of its mandate,
even though the Constitutent Assembly is convoked in meantime, are
quite as good as the precedents suggesting necessity to dissolve Ordi-
nary Assembly upon convocation of Constituent body.
  This explanation, coming as it does now after visit of Bulgarian
Ministers to Moscow and the refusal of opposition to be trapped into
silence by Moscow formula, leads me to believe that government and
Moscow plan not to dissolve the 26th Ordinary Assembly upon calling
Constituent Assembly late this spring or early in summer, but to have
the Ordinary Assembly form part of Constituent body and then con-
tinue for its normal duration after the Constitutent Assembly has re-
vised the Constitution. Such action would be the holding of only
partial elections for the Grand National Assembly effectively forestall
any real change in complexion of Constitutent body over present As-
sembly and at same time would assure present absolute control of the
Assembly by the government after termination of work of the Con-
stituent body.
  If such is plan, what is explanation of this extraordinary determina-
tion of Government not to allow opposition to have any voice in As-
sembly? One possible explanation lies in fact that world attention
has so converged on situation here as to preclude from now on use of
widespread terror to shape political views as government and Moscow
may wish. But there is another and, I think, more disturbing factor.
At any rate, it is my conviction and a conviction shared by many other
observers here that the controlling reason may well be the state of
relations now obtaining between Russia and Turkey.'6
  ' Not printed. The terms demanded by the opposition included the following:
Transfer of the Ministries of Interior and Justice to another political party;
adherence to the Fatherland Front political program of September 9, 1944;
cessation of police terror and disbandment of concentration camps; placing
the
State radio at the disposal of the opposition; dissolution of the Parliament
and
the holding of new elections under a new electoral law. (847.00/1-746)
  la For documentation regarding the interests of the United States in the
relations between the Soviet Union and Turkey, see vol. vii, pp. 801 if.



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