A warning that the recent stationing of 6,000 Iraqi troops in Syria “aggravates the situation in the area” was conveyed to United Nations Secretary-General U Thant yesterday in a letter from Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, chief Israeli representative to the UN. Mr. Tekoah asked the Secretary-General to obtain from the Baghdad Government “an affirmation that Iraq accepts the Security Council cease fire resolutions and that all Iraqi forces will respect the cease fire.”
Mr. Tekoah noted that Iraq was an active participant in the June, 1967 Arab-Israeli war and “has been evasive in respect of its acceptance of the cease fire.” He said Iraq “is continuing to maintain an expeditionary force on Jordanian territory in proximity to the cease fire line, this force having taken part in aggressive breaches of the cease fire against Israel and actively supported terror warfare against Israel.”
Iraq’s treatment of its remaining Jewish population was the subject of another letter from Mr. Tekoah today to Karoly Csatorday of Hungary, this month’s Security Council president. Mr. Tekoah charged that “what the Government of Iraq is trying to do is to assure itself a free hand to pursue its barbaric treatment of the Jews in Iraq by resisting international scrutiny of its gross misdeeds. It is understandable,” the letter went on, “that the deep and natural concern which these persecutions arouse among the Jewish communities in the world, and notably in Israel, where the majority of Jews who fled from previous persecutions in Iraq have found refuge, should cause embarrassment to the Government of Iraq.”
Mr. Tekoah said the treatment of Iraq’s Jews reflected the Baghdad regime’s attitude toward Israel, adding that “the Government of Israel cannot remain silent when political hostility toward itself becomes a pretext for cruelty against Jews simply as Jews.” He rebutted Iraqi charges that Israel mistreated Arab civilian living in the occupied territories. “When the citizens of Iraq, Jews or non-Jews, begin to enjoy, even only partially, freedom of movement, freedom of thought and expression and personal security as they are enjoyed by those Arab inhabitants, Iraq will have made great progress toward democracy and the respect for human rights required by the UN” Mr. Tekoah wrote.
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