Lord Caradon, the former British Ambassador to the United Nations, urged in a letter published today in The Times that an international peace conference be convened in Geneva to reach an overall settlement of the Middle East conflict. Lord Caradon recalled that he had proposed such a conference “long ago in the Four Power talks in New York.” Now, he wrote. “No one can watch the drift and delay in the Middle East without a sickening sense that the last hope of peace is draining away.”
The British diplomat, who served in the Labor Government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, said that “piecemeal proposals, such as that for the opening of the Suez Canal, have failed” and warned that such an interim agreement “might dangerously delay or even preclude a full settlement of all outstanding problems and prolong the sufferings of the refugees now facing yet another winter of mud and misery.”
In his letter, he said that Resolution 242 should serve as the basis for an international peace conference convened in Geneva under the auspices of the Security Council “with an independent chairman and everyone concerned taking part, most certainly with an opportunity for the Palestinians to be heard.”
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