Israel today gave a one-minute reply to a three-hour Saudi Arabian attack against Israel’s right to freedom of shipping through the Gulf of Akaba and the Straits of Tiran.
Shabtai Rosenne, Israel’s delegate on the General Assembly’s Legal Committee, took the floor in the Committee this morning after Saudi Arabia’s Ahmad Shukairy concluded a long, quasi-Juridical address which he started yesterday in an effort to “prove” that freedom of shipping in the Gulf of Akaba can be enjoyed only by the three Arab coastal states–Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Republic.
Mr. Rosenne, in reply, told the Committee only that Israel’s position “as one of the four coastal states on the Gulf of Akaba” was made clear in the General Assembly on March 1, 1957 and in the records of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea held last year. On both those occasions Israel had made it clear that it considers the waters in the Gulf of Akaba free to all shipping of all nations including Israel.
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