Cairo Conference Communiqué, November 26, 1943

November 26, 1943

 

Press Communiqué

 

President Roosevelt, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and Prime Minister Churchill, together with their respective military and diplomatic advisers, have completed a conference in North Africa. The following general statement was issued:

 

“The several military missions have agreed upon future military operations against Japan. The three great Allies expressed their resolve to bring unrelenting pressure against their brutal enemies by sea, land and air. This pressure is already rising.

 

“The three great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for themselves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent.

 

“With these objects in view the three Allies, in harmony with those of the United Nations at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure the unconditional surrender of Japan.”

 

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This is the agreed text as it was given by Hopkins to Kirk on the afternoon of November 26, 1943; see the memorandum by Kirk, infra. For earlier drafts of the communiqué, see ante, pp. 399–404. The communiqué, was released to the press by the White House on December 1, 1943, and was printed, with slight editorial variations, in the Department of State Bulletin, vol. ix, December 4, 1943, p. 393.

 

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