A proposal involving a reorientation of Turkish foreign policy and the extension of a plan for a Turkish-Arab alliance to include Israel was outlined here today by Hussein Jahid Yaltchin, Turkish elder statesman who is a member of the United Nations Palestine Conciliation Commission.
There is virtually no chance of peace between the Jews and Arabs without Turkish participation, Yaltchin said. Turkey, he continued, cannot affort to tolerate a restless Middle East because there are too many third parties interested in promoting unrest and instability. Therefore, the present Lausanne conference is of great direct interest also to Turkey.
It is necessary to have formal peace between the Arabs and Jews, but it is not enough. The Jews believe the Arabs are planning a war of revenge; the Arabs fear the Jews hope for additional conquest in Palestine and around it, he said.
To get any real peace in the Middle East, therefore, it is necessary to introduce a strong, respected, stabilizing factor into the Arab-Jewish relationship. Turkey could become this factor, he said, through the conclusion, in the first instance, of an alliance between Turkey and the Arab states and then between Turkey and Israel, Later, when the situation warrants it, further consolidation can take place through the extension of the alliance to include direct treaties between Israel and each of the Arab states, Yaltchin suggested.
The ultimate objective would be a new and better version of the pact of 1937 among Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. A new pact would include all the Arab states, Turkey, Iran, Israel, Pakistan. Afghanistan. Its members would undertake to refer all disputes among them to the International Court of Justice at the Hague, the Turkish statesman indicated.
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