Italian Foreign Minister Giuseppe Sarragat was reported here today to have vigorously defended Israel in talks with Vice-Premier Fawzi of Egypt, during his recent visit to Cairo, Vittorio Groesio, who accompanied the Foreign Minister as a correspondent for the leading newspaper, La Slampa, described the discussions in which Mr. Sarragat told the Egyptian Vice-Premier that “Israel is a reality which it would be absurd to deny” and that Israel “cannot be identified with a presumed aggressive Zionism but is a symbol of the persecution suffered by the Jews.”
The Foreign Minister also was reported as telling Mr. Fawzi that “admittedly the Arzbs did not commit that crime and therefore they do not have to pay for it, but they should not impede” efforts to achieve a settlement of the Israel-Arab problems. He added that there was a need to find a prompt solution to the Arab refugee problem, and that the best place to do that was in the United Nations.
The correspondent stressed that Mr. Fawzi, after saying that the Arab position on the issues was known, seemed to agree and did not repeat the usual formula of the Arab extremists that the only solution was to drive the Jews into the sea.
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