Palestine Arab Refugees Seek Talks “with Any Country” on Their Fate

The Palestine Arab refugees living in transit camps in a number of Arab states in the Middle East have decided to take matters Into their own hands and seek a solution of their economic problems through direct negotiations “with any country.”

This disclosure of the refugees’ determination to act in their own behalf, without tying their fate to the wordy political pronunciamentos of the Arab states leaders, was made public here for the first time today. The announcement to correspondents came after a top secret meeting here last month of refugee representatives who set up a non-political organization to enter into such negotiations.

The ten Arabs at the meeting claimed to speak for some 900,000 men, women and children scattered through Syria, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. They elected 39-year-old Tewfik S. Toukan, a former Jaffa landowner, as their spokesman.

“We are ready,” Mr. Toukan told correspondents today, “to sit together with any country under the control of the United Nations to find a justifiable solution of our case which will enable the refugees to better their economic conditions.” He added that no one, except the refugees themselves, could represent them on the following questions:

1. Direct refugee development; 2. A settlement regarding Arab property now in the hands of the Israel custodian abandoned Arab property; and, 3. Limited resettlement schemes for those Arab refugees willing to accept resettlement on a United Nations indemnity basis rather than return to Palestine.

Mr. Toukan revealed that he sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold outlining these points. In part, that letter declared: “According to the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Palestine Arab refugees we have opened in Geneva a non-governmental office for Palestine refugees to deal with personal problems of the refugees and their legal rights, independent of any political solution.”