Diplomatic sources said here today that United Nations envoy Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring once again may shift the site of his peace-seeking mission from the Middle East to New York to take advantage of the presence of the Israeli and Arab foreign ministers at the fall session of the General Assembly which opens Sept. 24. Dr. Jarring is due here tomorrow on another round of visits to Middle East capitals. He is scheduled to visit Cairo on Thursday and Amman on Friday. He recently returned to his Nicosia, Cyprus, headquarters after several weeks of mediation at the UN.
Diplomatic quarters believe however that the Middle East question may not be discussed at the forthcoming General Assembly sessions despite expected proposals that it be reopened there. They pointed out that the Security Council is still dealing with the subject. Nevertheless, the Israel Government is preparing for the possibility that the Middle East conflict will come up since it was on the agenda when the General Assembly adjourned last spring. Israel’s chief UN representative, Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, has been recalled for consultations and will have two weeks of discussions with the Foreign Minister Abba Eban.
It is believed that Dr. Jarring’s talks with Israeli officials here tomorrow will be concerned, as was the last session, with the definition of the term “just and lasting peace” by both sides in the Middle East conflict. That term appears in the Nov. 22, 1967 resolution of the Security Council which established the Jarring mission, and its interpretation by the Arabs is regarded by Israel to be the key to further peace efforts. The Israelis, in fact, consider other questions such as permanent frontiers to be secondary to and dependent on the way the Arabs define “just and lasting peace” and agree to implement it.
Diplomatic sources point out that the Arabs are bound by the decisions of the Khartoum summit conference of August, 1967 which was summed up in the formula: no recognition, no negotiations and no peace with Israel. Egypt, they say, is engaged in a juggling performance to comply with the Khartoum formula while at the same time trying to appear reasonable before world opinion.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
