Israel’s “legal right” of innocent maritime passage through the Gulf of Akaba was cited by Arthur H. Dean, chairman of the U.S. delegation to the recent United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, in an article on the “Freedom of the Seas” in the new issue of Foreign Affairs quarterly published today.
According to Mr. Dean, the convention adopted at the conference should be interpreted as making clear “that there shall be no suspension of the right of ‘innocent passage’ of foreign ships, including warships, through straits which are used for international navigation between one part of the high seas and another or to reach the territorial seas of another state.”
“This represents a significant reaffirmation of freedom of the seas and clearly applies to the Arab-Israeli controversy over the Strait of Tiran, giving Israel a legal right of innocent passage through the Gulf of Akaba to the Red Sea,” he emphasized.
Mr. Dean, a close associate of Secretary John Foster Dulles, reported that “the heated dispute over Israel’s right of passage through the Strait of Tiran connecting the Gulf of Akaba and the Red Sea unfortunately colored the attitude of some of the Arab countries toward the law of the sea and caused certain of them to vote for the Soviet proposition regarding the breadth of the territorial sea.” The international maritime conference to which he referred was held in Geneva.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
