Israel has insisted, in a fresh exchange of letters with Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, that Egypt’s pledge made last week to live up to a strategic clause in its armistice agreement with Israel should be interpreted as a readiness by Cairo to lift the Suez Canal blockade against Israeli shipping.
Mr. Hammarskjold, who is due in Israel tomorrow, announced last week that both Israel and Egypt have given him renewed assurances that “no element of the land, sea or air military or paramilitary forces of either party shall commit any warlike or hostile act.” In the exchange of correspondence, released here today by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. president of the Security Council, Israel’s Premier David Ben Gurion and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett maintained that the Suez Canal blockade is automatically covered by the key clause in the armistice agreement by which Egypt’s Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser agreed to abide.
Mr. Ben Gurion, in a letter to Mr. Hammarskjold dated last Friday, also brought up the problem of ultimate peace talks between Israel and Egypt. “I would be grateful.” Mr. Ben Gurion wrote, “if you could ascertain whether their readiness to undertake the full implementation of the general armistice agreement signifies that they no longer consider Egypt to be at war with Israel, as they have claimed to be before the Security Council.”
After making that point, Mr. Ben Gurion’s letter continued: “I should also like to be informed whether they realize that the observance of the general armistice agreement obligates them to discontinue the closing of the Suez Canal to Israeli ships and to desist from other forms of interference with Israeli shipping.”
In his answer to Mr. Ben Gurion the UN Secretary General hinted without saying so outright that the two weighty points raised by Mr. Ben Gurion are outside his Security Council mandate which is “concerned primarily with the state of compliance with the armistice agreements relevant to the situation which had developed along the demarcation lines, in the demilitarized zones, and in the defensive areas.” Mr. Hammarskjold conceded that other questions “outside my formal mandate” could be considered by him in his capacity as Secretary General.
Saturday, Mr. Sharett personally handed the UN Secretary General, at Lydda airport, a second letter which declared that Egypt’s acceptance of the key clause in the armistice agreement “cannot be regarded as genuine and unconditional if interpreted as leaving it open for Egypt to engage in such hostile acts as she may deem fit.” Mr. Sharett’s letter denounced Egyptian interference with Israeli shipping as “a hostile act” and also insisted that the wording of the Security Council resolution, which is Mr. Hammarskjold’s present mandate, “entitles the governments concerned to raise with you, under your terms of reference, the question of any existing infringement of the provisions of the existing general armistice agreement.”
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