Cablegram UN348 NEW YORK, 9 August 1946, 9.25 p.m.
SECRET
SECURITY 127.
1. The Committee on membership [1] after further examination of the Albanian case has adopted a list of questions by sub-Committee consisting of Australia, Egypt and Poland, for submission to the Albanian representative in New York. The list which will be published is given in my immediately succeeding telegram. [2]
2 An additional question asking whether Albania was willing to enter into diplomatic exchanges with members of the United Nations was omitted from the list. In accepting the omission we made it clear that we regarded the answer to such a question as being necessary criterion of membership in the United Nations and that it did not apply to the Albanian case simply because it was known that Albania had already entered into relations or was negotiating exchanges. Several other delegations, who, like ourselves, probably had in mind the case of closed countries such as Outer Mongolia, followed our lead and expressed a similar understanding.
3. We had also favoured inclusion of question whether Albanian application accorded with Albanian constitutional requirements. We based our case on (a) the necessity for some formality in connection with applications, both to insure that they were in a form acceptable to the United Nations and had been made by a duly authorised person (b) the element of doubt in the Albanian application because it had been submitted by undated telegram forwarded by the Government of Yugoslavia. The majority of the Committee, however, take the view that the Security Council by remitting the application for examination had already decided that it was in order.
The question was deleted but we formally reserved our right to reopen it later. In the course of discussion, several opposing delegations sympathized with our general views, but thought that any doubt could be resolved by the Committee itself and the Secretariat has been instructed to prepare a paper on this subject. Reference was also made by the French representative to the possibility that if the Albanian application was not in order it could be set right by ratification by the Albanian Parliament after admission. We pointed out that while the Charter required ratification by original signatories, there was no similar provision regarding new members and owing to the haste with which the Security Council had decided on procedures for admission no such requirement existed in the present rules governing admission.
We would appreciate your instructions on how far we should carry any objection to the Albanian application on the grounds that it has not been properly made.
_
1 See Documents 18, 46, 49 and 51.
2 Cablegram UN349 of 9 August. The questions concerned the circumstances of Albania’s armed conflict with Greece and its attitude towards current and past treaties with other states.
_
[AA:A1067, E46/1/3]