Israeli Officials Discount Reports That Jordan Seeking Political Solution at UN

Official sources here today discounted reports that the Jordanian Government was seeking a political solution to the Arab-Israel conflict and said that statements to that effect by King Hussein, reported by the New York and London press, were only intended to make a “good impression” on the United Nations General Assembly. These sources also implied that today’s warning by Moscow that alleged Israeli provocations were imperiling peace in the Middle East was mainly for the benefit of the General Assembly. Officials here declined to comment in detail on the Soviet warning because they lacked the exact text. One source said however that at first glance, the Russian statement appeared to be intended as a clarification of Soviet policy toward the Arabs and toward the rest of the world.

(New York Times correspondent Dana Adams Schmidt, in a dispatch from Amman yesterday, said that Jordan was sending Foreign Minister Abdel Moneim Rifai to the UN with instructions to seek indirect negotiations with Israel through United Nations special envoy, Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring. “It is understood by palace officials here that the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Republic, Mahmoud Riad, has similar instructions from President Gamal Abdel Nasser,” Mr. Schmidt wrote. He said the reported peace moves resulted from Jordan’s fear that the Hashemite monarchy could not survive another round of fighting with Israel and the current alternatives, in King Hussein’s view are “an acceptable settlement this autumn or an explosion in the spring,” the Times correspondent reported.)

Sources here recalled that Jordan had intimated as early as last May that it did not reject completely the idea of a meeting with Israel under Dr. Jarring’s auspices, but subsequently failed to follow through. Jordan’s failure to set a date for talks with Israel was blamed on the quest for Arab unity and the internal situation in Jordan, the sources said. But Dr. Jarring – as reported by Secretary-General U Thant – has made no progress since May and there were no signs that the Jordanian delegation would meet with the Israeli delegation during the present session of the General Assembly, they said.

(King Hussein continuing his reminiscences of the June, 1967 war in an article in the London Telegraph, rejected the idea of a separate peace between Jordan and Israel and warned that unless Dr. Jarring is able to make clear progress, the Middle East would be thrown into a “merciless struggle” that would be a prolonged war leading to Israel’s defeat and would endanger world peace.)