Rep. Emanuel Celler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, yesterday called for a White House conference to settle once and for all the problem of the 900,000 Arab refugees. He said President Eisenhower should summon such a meeting and urge “enlightened members of the United Nations “to accept a portion of the refugees. He suggested that the United States should take 25,000 Arab refugees if other nations accepted a “fair share.”
The United Nations General Assembly’s Special Political Committee has suspended its debate on the Arab refugee issue yesterday in the face of a deadlock between the Western Powers, led by the United States, and the Arab states on the future of the UN Relief and Works Agency for the refugees. It is anticipated that the matter will arise again in a plenary session of the Assembly toward the end of the current session.
The United States, principal supporter of the UNRWA program, sought to have a study committee set up to consider what was to be done in the situation after 1960, when the current UNRWA program is scheduled to come to an end. The Arab states demanded continuation of the present schedule, with UN member states supplying the funds for 1959-1960, without prior consideration of what would happen after mid-1960.
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