Israel Hopes Eisenhower-khrushchev Meeting Will Relax Tensions

The hope that East-West tensions would be relaxed as a result of the forthcoming meeting between President Eisenhower and Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev was expressed here tonight by Golda Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister. Such relaxation of tensions, she declared, would “also affect the Middle East.”

Mrs. Meir made that statement in an interview over the Israel radio during which she declared also that the Eisenhower Doctrine does not provide sufficient guarantees of Israel’s securities.

Concerning Israel’s insistence, on freedom of shipping through the Suez Canal, the Foreign Minister declared that Israel rejects totally the theory that United Arab Republic President Gamal Abdel Nasser has any right to impose conditions on any nation’s freedom of shipping through the international waterway.

Col. Nasser’s “conditions,” as conveyed to Israel recently by United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, are that Israeli cargoes will be permitted passage through the Suez only if the goods are purchased FOB Haifa, so that the goods be owned by foreign purchasers before they are taken through the Canal. Goods being shipped to Haifa must be marked CIF Haifa, meaning that the goods remained the property of a foreign exporter until the shipments have reached Haifa.

Denying that Col. Nasser has either “legal or moral right” to set such conditions, Mrs. Meir said Israel will refuse to test Nasser’s “conditions.” “Such demands,” she held, “cannot be made the basis for unlocking a deadlock.”

In answer to another question, Mrs. Meir declined to say whether she plans on continuing as Foreign Minister after next November’s general elections in Israel. She also said that the Israel Government has never taken any decision, one way or another, on whether to establish diplomatic relations with West Germany.