A 30-minute discussion marked resumption this afternoon of the Arab-Jewish-British roundtable conference initiated informally yesterday for the first time in the current triangular talks on the Palestine problem.
Following the brief session, it was authoritatively understood that the talks on Monday will revert to the separate British-Jewish and British-Arab discussions that had characterized the conferences up to yesterday. In morning and afternoon sessions respectively with Arabs and Jews, the British representatives are expected to make more positive suggestions with regard to a Palestine constitution, immigration and land sales.
Informal tripartite talks, it was understood, will be resumed later in the week. Meanwhile, Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald was scheduled to report this evening to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Premier Nuri Pasha es-Said of Iraq also was to confer with Mr. Chamberlain prior to departing for Iraq tonight.
Following today’s tripartite meeting, the British representatives met with the Jewish delegates and reportedly submitted to them detailed proposals for settlement of Palestine’s future.
The roundtable session was preceded by a three-hour meeting of the Jewish conference committee, at which the position of the Anglo-Jewish conferences was discussed and a report of yesterday’s roundtable meeting was heard. Dr. Stephen S. Wise and Louis Lipsky, of the American Zionist delegation, conferred later with United States Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy.
The Arab representatives at yesterday’s meeting were understood to have declared that the League mandate constituted only a temporary form of government and to have urged the Jews to agree to establishment of an independent Arab State in Palestine on the basis of equal political rights for Jews and minority safeguards. Dr. Chaim Weizmann was understood to have made it clear that participation of the Jews in the informal discussions did not imply recognition of the Arab States’ rights to intervene in the future of Palestine. He reportedly, however, voiced appreciation of their keen interest in Palestine and their attempt to give good advice to the Palestine Arabs.
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