Further information on the exchange of Notes between Britain and Norway on the Altmark affair, was released today in an official communique. This revealed that the Norwegian Foreign Minister, M. Halvdan Koht, has apologized to the British Government ior e serious mistake he made in his speech denouncing British action against the Altmark as violation of Norwegian neutrality.
The British communique issued this evening stated in full:
A Norwegian newspaper recently suggested that the statement regarding the Altmark case made recently by Professor H. Koht, Norwegian Foreign Minister, was intentionally given inadequate publicity in Britain. The facts are that no steps were taken by the British Government to influence the newspapers in any way and that }this statement was indeed published on February 21 in "The Times" in a {conspfeuous position, In view, however, of the tendent cious comments made on this point in certain quarters, the British Govern-iment is constrained to state that one point in Professor Koht's statement was inaccurate, namely when he said that in the summer of 1939, the British Government had asked the Norwegian [Government how the passage in the norwegian Neutrality Regulation lealing with passage through territorial waters was to be understood, fand emphasizing that warships must thave the right to sail in Norwegian {territorial waters as long as {desired and without regard to the 24- [hours limit.
There is no foundation for such n Istatement, the British communique Tassebted this evening.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.