Egypt re-opened an anti-Israel grievance almost a year old, demanding that it be reconsidered by the Egypt-Israel Mixed Armistice Commission, as its “greeting” in Cairo on the first visit there of Gen. E.L.M. Burns, new chief of the United Nations truce supervision organization in Palestine, according to press reports received here today.
Gen. Burns is touring the capitals of all the countries signatory to the Arab-Israel armistice agreements, to orient himself to his new job. At Cairo, the reports say, Egypt demanded that he re-open the Egyptian complaint which avers that Israel uses an agricultural settlement in the demilitarized zone of El Auja as “a fortified stronghold.”
Egypt had made that claim before the Mixed Armistice Commission last September. Israel denied the allegation, and the Commission did not sustain Egypt’s charge. Now, Brig. Gen. Mahmoud Riaud, chief of Cairo’s Foreign Ministry’s Arab affairs department, has revived the charge, asserting that the allegation has been “confirmed” by an Israel army deserter.
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