The Israeli section of the joint United States-Israel committee on Israel’s projected nuclear desalination plant is due to present its final report on the $200,000,000 project this week, informed sources said here today.
The contents of the report has been kept strictly secret, and will be released only after the Israel Government makes a study of it. The Israeli section held its final meetings last week and will probably disband after the presentation of its report to Premier Eshkol.
It was generally assumed that, after the presentation of the report, Premier Eshkol will deal with subsequent steps in the project through personal contact with President Johnson. The Premier will act either through correspondence or by sending a personal representative to Washington. The chief question still to be clarified involves the terms of United States participation in financing the plant.
Writing in the current issue of the Army publication, Maarachot, Premier Eshkol expressed Israel’s determination to respect the provisions of the plan for cooperative use of Jordan River water developed a decade ago by the late Eric Johnston, as President Eisenhower’s special emissary on the problem. The Premier added the proviso that Israel’s position was contingent on similar respect on the part of the riparian Arab states. He added a warning that Israel would hold the Arab states responsible for terrorist incursions from their territories into Israel.
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