Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold said today on his return from a six-week global tour that he did not see “any easy way to so-called solutions of the problems in the Middle East,” but I do see progress.” He told a press conference at United Nations headquarters that he did not see any reason for “panicky reactions over the possibility of war in the Middle East and cautioned that “dramatizing the situation does not help solutions.”
Mr. Hammarskjold rejected the suggestion that the Middle East was on the “brink” of war and said. I do not think the Middle East is on any such brink. I simply, flatly, refuse to believe it.” He said he saw no way for the United Nations to halt an arms race in the Middle East, pointing out that “the governments have the primary responsibility.”
Mr. Hammarskjold saw no need for any new action at the present time by either the General Assembly or the Security Council in relation to Middle East tensions. “We can go along the lines already embarked upon,” he said. “We may get to a place where new procedures are needed but that place is not here yet.”
The Secretary General said that he did not believe that the UN should take the initiative at this time to mediate the Israel-Arab conflicts. “I feel very strongly that solutions must grow out of the governments concerned. There is no need for the Secretary General to jump to the middle of the stage with offers of mediation.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
