Prime Minister Harold Wilson told the House of Commons yesterday that Britain had urged Israel to take to the United Nations the issue of Arab threats to Jordan River water access, rather than to seek a “military solution.” He made the statement during debate on British Middle East policy. He also said that, while Britain would like better relations with Egypt, it had no intention of seeking that goal by sacrificing its ties with Israel, Iran or any other Middle East nation with which had good relations. He said such action would be a change in the general basis of British policy in the area.
Declaring that the question of the Jordan River waters was one of the immediate causes of tension in the Middle East, he reported that Britain had made it clear to Israel that, if anything happened which the Israelis regarded as provocative, excessive or dangerous from the viewpoint of water access, there was a vital need not to settle this problem by any recourse to an imposed or military solution. If matters reached that point, he said, Britain hoped Israel would take the question to the UN.
(From Jerusalem, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency received a dispatch tonight, reporting that Prime Minister Levi Eshkol had returned home. He had visited France briefly for a rest, after spending a week in London, conferring with British leaders, including Prime Minister Harold Wilson.)
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