UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim said yesterday that he did not believe Israel would be expelled from the United Nations, despite mounting activity in that direction by Moslem nations and some of their Third World allies. Questioned on ABC’s “Issues and Answers” television program as to whether a vote to bar Israel from participation in the General Assembly would effectively expel that country from the world organization, Waldheim replied, “No, I don’t think this will happen.”
Waldheim also said he believed Egypt would agree to extend the mandate of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) in Sinai after its expiration July 24, only if the Security Council took steps to expedite a further Israeli withdrawal.
“My personal belief is that Egypt will only agree to a prolongation of the mandate if the Council…spells out more clearly the need for a full implementation of the previous resolutions of the Security Council,” the Secretary General said. He noted that the Council’s deliberations, beginning later this week, would be extremely difficult and doubted they would be concluded before the July 24 deadline, this Thursday.
Waldheim’s remarks implied that what Egypt demands of the Security Council is a rider to a resolution extending the life of UNEF which would specifically interpret Resolution 242 as calling for Israel’s withdrawal from “all” occupied Arab territories rather than from “territories” as the resolution now states.
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.
