Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold disclosed here today that, “for a couple of months,” he has been working on a special report dealing with the Arab refugee problem, and that he will present that report next fall to the General Assembly.
At a general press conference today. Mr. Hammarskjold made that disclosure in connection with reports in the Arab press to the effect that the Arab League has circulated among its members a special memorandum urging joint Arab-Israel talks on the refugee problem.
Declaring that he has “no word about this memorandum, if it exists,” the UN Chief implied that his own report will call for continuance of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Arab Refugees. UNRWA’s mandate is scheduled to expire July 1, 1960, and the next session of the Assembly must decide whether to continue UNRWA’s operations, or substitute some other method for aiding the Arab refugees.
Mr. Hammarskjold said he has already discussed “some aspects” of his forthcoming refugee report “with host governments and other governments.” The “host” governments are the Arab states in whose countries the refugees now live–Egypt as the power controlling the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Iraq.
Mr. Hammarskjold confirmed at his press conference the fact that Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Undersecretary of the UN, is going to the Middle East. Mr. Bunche departs tomorrow and will visit the United Nations Emergency Force troops at Gaza. He will also go to Cairo and Jerusalem, and probably to the Jordanian capital of Amman.
There are no specific problems of urgency for Dr. Bunche to discuss, the Secretary General said. He declared that the issue of Egyptian seizures of Israel-originated cargoes attempting passage of the Suez Canal is an issue on which he himself has been in contact with Cairo. Asked whether Dr. Bunche will discuss that issue in Cairo, he stated: “There is no specific agenda for him to discuss. I would not include that subject, and I would exclude it.”
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