The United Nations is waiting to hear what the Egyptians intend to do about the Security Council directive calling on them to lift their traffic restrictions in the Suez Canal, U.N. officials said today. There was no time limit to such a response in the Security Council resolution passed last Saturday so there is no telling how long the waiting period will be.
Officials said, however, that if Egypt refused to comply, presumably the members of the Security Council would meet and decide what to do about that non-compliance. The previous outstanding case of non-compliance with a Security Council order was the series of Dutch refusals to cease fire in Indonesia on order of the Council. In those cases the council kept pressing its demands and eventually brought a settlement of the Dutch-Indonesian conflict.
Were any nation, such as Israel, to decide that the Council was waiting too long for compliance with its Suez order, U.N. officials pointed out, that nation could call the Council’s attention to the situation. It was stressed that there is no reason why the blockade issue should merely lapse because of inaction by Egypt.
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