Thant Report on Mideast May Not Be Released Until Shortly Before Cease-fire Expires

A spokesman for the United Nations said today that a report by Secretary General U. Thant on the Middle East was “still under consideration,” and would be issued “when he finds it desirable and necessary to do so.” Thant’s progress report, which repor- tedly was due before the current cease-fire expires March 7, appeared today to be hanging fire until the Big Four conclude their meeting and President Nixon holds his press conference tonight in which he will deal with foreign policy. It is understood, for instance, that U.S. envoy George Bush has been asking Thant to make his Security Council report before the Big Four meet. One non-American Western diplomat observed in this connection that “substance is more important than timing.” He added that he was “disappointed” at the “unyielding tone” of Israel’s Feb. 21 statement rejecting total withdrawal from the captured Arab lands. It was “unnecessary for Israel to spell out some of the details with such toughness,” the diplomat explained. Iran and Rumania issued statements on the Mideast today. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that in view of Egypt’s “positive attitude,” Israel should “reciprocate by taking positive steps in the direction of peace and tranquility.”

If Israel should “persist in its refusal to implement” Security Council Resolution 242 of Nov. 22, 1967, and “maintain its negative attitude towards” the U.S. initiative and the “proposals” of negotiator Gunnar V. Jarring, Iran “will see no alternative but to condemn the in conciliatory attitude of Israel.” The Rumanian News Agency, in an authorized statement, said its government “welcomes with satisfaction the efforts and initiatives of the United Arab Republic” and “cannot understand the Israeli government’s stiff position of stipulating conditions of a nature to prevent a negotiated settlement, of failing to show the necessary receptivity along the line of finding such a settlement.” In the continuing controversy over Israeli practices in Jerusalem, Israeli Ambassador Yosef Tekoah advised Thant yesterday that “There has been no confiscation nor any expropriation of lands…; neither is there any intention on the part of the government of Israel to take such steps in the future.”