Prime Minister Harold Wilson, in his meetings with Israel’s Premier Levi Eshkol since last Thursday, told the Israeli leader that a military balance should be preserved between the forces concerned in the Arab-Israeli disputes, a spokesman for the Foreign Office declared here today.
Expressing opposition to the arms race in the Middle East, Mr. Wilson also told Mr. Eshkol, according to the spokesman, that: 1. Britain opposes the use of force or the threat of force by any government in the Middle East area: 2. Opposes interferences by any country in the region with the internal affairs of any other country: 3. Opposes encouragement of subversion in the region; 4. Reiterates the British Government’s policy to the effect that all countries have a right to arms for their defense, but considers it important for the maintenance of peace in the area that an Arab-Israel military balance be preserved.
A spokesman for the Government, summarizing Mr. Eshkol’s other major series of talks here, with Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart, said:
“Mr. Eshkol’s visit has provided a welcome opportunity for the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to discuss with him, in accordance with the friendly relations between the two countries, a wide range of subjects of mutual interests and concern, especially Anglo-Israeli relations and the situation in the Middle East. Both sides felt that Mr. Eshkol’s visit has advanced Anglo-Israeli understanding and had successfully demonstrated the continuing friendly relations between the two countries.”
A source close to the Foreign Office also said that the Jordan River water issue had been discussed in the lengthy talk between Mr. Eshkol and Mr. Stewart. The latter was reported to have made it clear that Britain would deplore any action to interior with the water supplies of any country in the Middle East. Although Britain is not a party to the Eric Johnston water plan, worked out on behalf of the United States in 1955, Mr. Eshkol was reportedly told by the British Foreign Secretary that Britain would consider the criteria set up by the Johnston plan as a sensible yardstick for interpretation of the water rights of any of the parties concerned.
U. S. AND BRITAIN AGREE TO COORDINATE THEIR MIDDLE EAST POLICIES
The same source declared that the Eshkol visit had resulted in no change in British policy, but provided an opportunity for clarification and reiteration of mutual Anglo Israeli friendship. The source said that both Britain and the United States had agreed in last week’s visit to Washington by Mr. Stewart to coordinate their Middle East policies. Both the U.S.A. and Britain, this source said, have Israel’s interests at heart.
Minister of Defense Denis Healey was present during the Eshkol-Stewart talks which Mr. Eshkol described later as having left him “very satisfied.” There may be differences of views “here or there,” he said, but on the whole the talks were “friendly and useful.” He said that “there will, no doubt, be more talks on a lower level.” He did not find, the Israeli leader declared, any basic differences in the appraisal of the Middle East situation by Britain and Israel, adding that he took good care to explain the Israeli position “very, very clearly.”
The British Government, it was asserted here, believes that there is ##, reason for Israel to be emphatic about the Arab threat to its Jordan River water supplies. But Mr. Eshkol, speaking in a television interview here today, reiterated a statement he had previously made in Israel, asserting that the Jordan water were “Israel’s lifeline.” At one time, he said, experts thought that the Jordan water sources would furnish 2,500,000,000 cubic meters, but it has been established more recently that the amount would be only 1,500,000,000 cubic meters. For that reason, he said, “the water is even more precious.”
On television and in other news interviews, Mr. Eshkol asserted that the danger of war in the Middle East is not imminent “though the Arabs threaten us at least twice a month.” “If the Arabs thought Israel was weak,” he said, “the danger would be much greater. But they know Israel would not be an easy but to crack.” He reiterated ahis attitude toward the Syrian plans for diversion of the headwaters of the Jordan River, declaring that if these plans were implemented, Israel would consider it “territorial aggression, and would respond accordingly.”
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