“Lasting friendship” between Uruguay and Israel was pledged here today by Uruguayan President Alberto Heber at a special meeting of the Cabinet, held in honor of Israel’s President Zalman Shazar.
The Israeli President arrived here yesterday on the first leg of a six-week Latin American tour that will include state visits to Argentina, Chile and Brazil. Mr. Shazar’s tour of Latin America is scheduled to be followed by visits to Washington and New York, where he will meet President Lyndon B. Johnson and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant.
At the extraordinary session of the Cabinet today, President Heber also announced that, tomorrow, he and President Shazar will sign an Israeli-Uruguayan agreement for the sharing of knowledge concerning the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. Addressing the special meeting of the Cabinet, President Heber said: “Friendship between our two countries is sincere and lasting. Uruguay honors Israel for its creative pioneering, its faith in fraternal relations and its devotion to its ideals. My country has never known religious or racial hatred because our basic concepts are foreign to such thinking.”
In his reply to President Heber, President Shazar told the Cabinet: “Uruguay holds an honored place among the nations that have supported Israel.” As he did yesterday, during the ceremonies at the airport, where he was received with highest honors, Mr. Shazar referred to the fact that Uruguay’s delegation to the United Nations was in the forefront in supporting the 1947 U.N. resolution for the partition of Palestine, and that Uruguay was among the first governments in the world to recognize Israel’s independence in 1948. Tonight, President Heber gave a formal state dinner in the Presidential palace in honor of the Israeli President. Six hundred persons attended the event, at which the food was kosher in honor of the chief of state of the Jewish State. Among the guests were the cream of Uruguayan leadership in politics, the arts and the sciences and diplomacy.
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