Nasser Tells British He is Ready to Go Back to 1949 Armistice Pact with Israel

A special emissary sent to Cairo by Foreign Secretary George Brown in a move to restore British-Egyptian relations, reported today that President Nasser now attaches “great importance” to a United Nations presence in the Middle East and would be prepared to return to the 1949 Egyptian-Israeli armistice agreement.

Sir Dingle Foot, the former Solicitor-General, said in a television interview that he had discussed a Middle East settlement with Nasser and found him ready to return to the 1949 armistice status. The agreement provided for a mixed Israeli-Egyptian commission under a United Nations chairman. A prior condition, however, would have to be Israeli withdrawal from occupied Egyptian territory.

Israel has stated repeatedly that the 1949 armistice agreements are dead and cannot be revived and that the 1949 armistice lines were irrevocably wiped out by the Arab military action precipitating the June war. It was recalled here in connection with Nasser’s desire for a U.N. presence that it was Nasser’s eviction of the United Nations Emergency Force that resulted in the Egyptian-Israeli confrontation and the war.

Cairo dispatches received here today indicated that Nasser will repeat what he had told Sir Dingle Foot in conferences he is to hold with Sir Harold Beeley, who is going to Cairo as the official representative of the British Government. Sir Harold, who is due in Cairo tomorrow, was Britain’s Ambassador to Cairo when Egypt broke diplomatic relations with Britain in 1965 over London’s handling of the Rhodesian crisis.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, Israel’s Foreign Minister Abba Eban and Mr. Brown had engaged in a sharp exchange at United Nations Headquarters in New York recently over Mr. Brown’s plan to send Sir Harold to Cairo and over the British Government’s insistence on Israel’s withdrawal from the banks of the Suez Canal. The Sunday Telegraph said the prime reason for the Eban-Brown exchange was that Israel suspects Sir Harold of being “over-sympathetic” to the Arab cause.

Foreign Office circles resent Israeli press attacks on Britain and British Ministers, it was reported today. They pointed out that it is “simply not true” to say that Britain is trying to appease Egyptian President Nasser at the expense of Israel. Britain was looking after her own interests, but this was “another matter,” they said. Britain considered the U.N. Security Council a “better medium” for discussions on the Middle East, especially with a view to exploring the possibilities of reopening the Suez Canal. Israel preferred to use the General Assembly for such talks, they said, but “differences of opinion” need not bring the two sides back to the “bitter conflict” of 1946.

The same circles emphatically denied that Mr. Brown had pressed for unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from the east bank of the Suez Canal. Israel Embassy circles issued a similar denial. To this reaction by British foreign office circles, it was reported there was added the suggestion that “appeasement is by definition at the expense of some interests, and those may include Israeli interests, if Israel is not watchful.”

The British press, however, remains consistently pro-Israel, with only very few exceptions, the report continued, and Israeli newspapers might therefore be expected to exercise some voluntary restraint as an act of self-denial for the sake of good taste and in order to respond to the mood of the British press.