STRUGGLE EXPECTED IN SECURITY COUNCIL
The real struggle is expected to be in the Security Council if Syria presses for the Council’s renewal resolution to refer to the Waldheim letter and Israel fights against any such reference.
The letter will doubtless contain passages of “political” import which Israel has said all along must not be linked to the mandate renewal. Israel has pledged to fight against any Syrian attempt to make political capital out of the six-monthly renewals. Last time Syria succeeded in linking the renewal to the holding of a Security Council debate on the Middle East to which the PLO was invited.
Israeli officials are hoping that this time the U.S. will stand firm against any Syrian effort to introduce political “linkage,” such as references to Waldheim’s letter into the renewal resolution.
It is understood that the question of Syria’s demand for a letter was the main subject of Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog’s talk with Waldheim yesterday. Herzog told the Secretary General that Israel would not consider itself bound by anything he might write to Assad, and would fight against the letter serving as a basis for the Security Council’s mandate renewal resolution.
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