Israeli and Arab leaders have agreed in principle to plan to free 15 merchant ships stranded in the Suez Canal since the June, 1967 war under the direction of the United Nations, according to Edward Heath, Conservative Party leader, who just returned from a visit to Israel and Egypt. The Sunday Express reported that Mr. Heath said the plan provided for the UN to undertake immediately full responsibility for a detailed survey of the canal’s southern end. This would establish precisely what dredging work was necessary to open a route to the Red Sea for the trapped vessels. According to the newspaper, Mr. Heath saw a good chance for a breakthrough so long as supervision of the survey remained entirely in the hands of Lt. Gen. Odd Bull, chief of the UN truce observation team in the Middle East. The paper said the Conservative leader would demand this week that Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart follow up at the UN his personal diplomatic initiative.
Mr. Heath said on his departure from Jerusalem on Friday that he realized that Israel’s main objective was peace. He doubted that the Big Four would be able to force a solution to the Mideast deadlock but felt they might propose an arrangement that would contribute toward finding a solution. While in Israel, Mr. Heath met with. Premier Golda Meir and with a group of Arab leaders from East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The Financial Times reported from Cairo Thursday that the World Bank had agreed in principle to provide foreign exchange financing needed to deepen and widen the Suez Canal so that it might accommodate 200,000 deadweight ton supertankers. The Times said its source of information was Mansour Khalil, deputy director of the Suez Canal Authority, who claimed the World Bank’s offer was made by a mission to Cairo last fall.
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.
