Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden told the House of Commons today that despite the delivery of Communist arms to Egypt and the other states Britain intended to continue supplying arms to some Arab states with which it had treaty obligations, such as Iraq and Jordan.
Participating in a debate on the Middle East precipitated by questions from both sides of the House, Sir Anthony rejected a demand that he seek a meeting of the Big Four, including the Soviet Union, in an attempt to establish an arms embargo on the Middle East. He indicated that Britain did not favor an embargo because she was obligated under treaties to ship arms to some Middle East states, because the signatories of the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 had recognized the need of the Middle East states for arms, and because there was no reason to expect the USSR to go along with an embargo.
Prime Minister Eden indicated that an approach had been made to the Soviets and had been rebuffed. “We have raised the matter with the Soviet Government and the results do not encourage us to believe that this supply of arms, nominally from Czechoslovakia, is one upon which agreement is likely to be reached.”
(In Baghdad yesterday, at the opening of a meeting of the five-nation council of the Baghdad Alliance, Harold Macmillan, British Foreign Secretary, said that Britain would not attempt to outbid the Russians in providing arms for Egypt, #or would she attempt to balance deliveries by increasing shipments to Israel. He also said that Britain does not blame Egypt, nor will she blame or laud any other Arab state which buys arms from the Soviet bloc.)
In the course of the debate, Fitzroy Maclean, Parliamentary Undersecretary for the War Office, replying to an MP, said that Egypt had bought the largest share of surplus arms, munitions and equipment left at the Suez base when the British Army evacuated it. Asked whether Israel had been permitted to purchase any of these weapons, Mr. Maclean said that the sale was open to other countries, but he did not see how Israel buyers could have entered the Suez Canal zone.
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