Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam of Syria urged the General Assembly today to impose sanctions against Israel and to suspend it from membership in the United Nations.
Addressing the 154-member body, Khaddam declared, “We urge the General Assembly to adopt sanctions against Israel and suspend its membership in the international organization to ensure respect for the UN Charter and its resolutions and to stress the significance of working for peace.” He said that the UN must re-examine Israel’s membership “because Israel not only rejects the UN resolution but also defies them and persists in its defiance.
In a sharply worded attack on what he called the “alliance” between Egypt, Israel and the U.S. the Syrian Foreign Minister charged that the Camp David accords are a “conspiracy concocted by U.S. imperialism in collaboration with the racist Zionist entity and the Egyptian regime.”
EGYPTIAN SUPPORTS EUROPEAN INITIATIVE
Another speaker at today’s General Assembly debate was Deputy Premier Kamal Hassan Ali of Egypt, who is also Foreign Minister. He declared that his country was persevering in efforts to resolve the Palestinian-problem. He said Egypt supported the European initiative for a Middle East solution as well as the ideas advanced by President Nicolas Ceausescu of Romania who has called for an international conference to negotiate a Middle East settlement.
With respect to the current Iraqi-Iranian war, Ali said Egypt views the situation with “utmost concern and dismay in that the danger in the area was compounded by external strategic ambitions. He said his country was ready to shoulder its responsibility in safeguarding the sovereignty of the Arab people in the Gulf area in accordance with their wishes.
Ali also called for a collective commitment to the goats of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and for moves toward the establishment of a nuclear free zone in the Middle East.
Referring to the situation in south Lebanon, Ali charged that Israeli attacks there were another dangerous manifestation of the use of force in international relations. He said Israel is mistaken in thinking that the use of force against Lebanon served its security. Such policies, he argued, only constitute a grave threat to peace in the region.
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