A report in a newspaper in West Germany, alleging that Secretary General U Thant had proposed a “Jordan-Israeli exchange of territory,” was denied here today. A spokesman for the United Nations asserted that Mr. Thant had not made such a statement and “had never heard of it.”
The report was printed in Der Spiegel, of Hamburg, an illustrated weekly of large circulation. According to Der Spiegel, Mr. Thant said that the Jordan-Israel territorial exchange would involve “handing over to Jordan the Latrun area, near Jerusalem, and incorporating Mount Scopus into Israel.” The Latrun area is a demilitarized zone under Jurisdiction of the Israel-Jordanian UN Mixed Armistice Commission. Mount Scopus, site of the pre-1948 Hebrew University camputs and Hddassah Hospital, is an Israel enclave surrounded by areas controlled by Jordan.
(In Jerusalem today, Israeli officials termed the German report “groundless,” and said nothing was known to Israel about such plans. The Israeli sources noted that, in the past, Israel expressed itself as ready for minor territorial adjustments along its Jordanian border, but not “territorial exchange” had been envisaged.)
Mr. Thant said here that the United Nations “has to do its utmost to create conditions conducive to the peaceful settlement” of such disputes as the Jordan River water issue between Israel and neighboring Arab states.
Asked how he evaluated the current situation in the Middle East and whether he foresaw “a possible war danger there over the diversion of the Jordan River waters,” he replied that the situation in the area had changed in recent weeks and that there were in the Middle East, as in other parts of the world, “shifting alignments and shifting patterns.”
He added he felt “it is a little too early to assess whether these shifting alignments and patterns are for the better or for the worse.” Without referring by name to the Jordan River dispute, he said that “we have to be very vigilant in that area and the United Nations has to do its utmost to create conditions conducive to the peaceful settlement of outstanding disputes.”
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