Reports from Paris about a far-reaching agreement by Britain with France’s Middle East policy were denied today by Foreign Minister Abba Eban. He told the Cabinet at its weekly meeting that according to Information Israel has received from a representative of the British Foreign Office, “no decisions have been taken on any specific issue.” He said a certain similarity of views was reached only on the mutual desire of both Britain and France to see the Jarring mission resumed. At the opening of today’s Cabinet meeting, the Ministers rose for a minute of silence in memory of the late Minister of the interior, Haim Moshe Shapiro. In Beth Sokolow Friday night, Mr. Eban said there was nothing new in the Soviet-Egyptian communique issued that day. The Joint statement branded Israel the aggressor and called for a political settlement. Mr. Eban said the Soviet Union’s insistence on total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, which he observed was not specified in the Security Council’s Nov. 22,1967 resolution, indicated the Kremlin does not really want peace. “What is being termed by them as the so-called aggression of Sixty-Seven was in Israel’s eyes the mere desire for survival,” Mr. Eban said.
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