The Security Council met today long enough to hear that Count Folke Bernadotte, U.N. mediator in Palestine, had notified Council president Fari el Khoury that he would be able to report the success or failure of truce negotiations by Wednesday. He, therefore, suggested that the Council might postpone its discussion of this matter until than. The Council agreed to this suggestion and set its next meeting for Thursday.
The Soviet Union served notice today that it is ready to send Red Army officers into Palestine to serve as United Nations military observers during the cease-fire period. Andrei Gromyko of the U.S.S.R. took issue with the action of Bernadotte and the Security Council Truce Commission which, it was disclosed today, has directly approached the three countries represented on the Commission with a request that they send military observers to Palestine.
After the Soviet delegate had brought the issue into the open, the Council heard statements by the delegates of Belgium, France and the United States, whose consular officials in Jerusalem comprise the U.N. Truce Commission, confirming the report that they had been approached without the Council’s knowledge.
Philip C. Jessup of the U.S., Fernand van Langenhove of Belgium, and Alexandre Parodi of France confirmed that their governments had been approached by the mediator with a view to sending military observers to Palestine. Jessup and van Langenhove stated that their government had agreed in principle to this request.Parodi indicated that his government was still studying the matter.
Gromyko called for a clarification of the principle by which military observers would be selected, reminding the Council that it had left the matter up in the air and that the Truce Commission had so authority to make Interpretations of its own. The question of the military observers will be discussed at the next meeting of the Council on Palestine.
JEWISH REPRESENTATIVE WARNS SPEEDY ACTION NEEDED TO SAVE JERUSALEM
Major Aubrey Eban, Israeli representative, urged the Council to take speedy action to safeguard Jerusalem, for which the Council and the U.N., he said, have shown a special regard. He also stated that discussions on the cease-fire are still going an between Bernadotte and Israeli Foreign minister Moshe Shertok and that until the talks are concluded he would refrain from expressing the Israeli viewpoint on such matters as the one raised by the U.S.S.R.
Nine more members of the U.N. Secretariat left for Cairo by air today to bolster the mediator’s staff. They include three members of the Trusteeship Department staff who worked on the draft statute for Jerusalem. The party includes one Arab, and one Jew, William Epstein, of the Security Council Department.
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