Dag Hammarskjold, United Nations Secretary General, indicated today he felt that the Arab boycott against Israel was hampering his efforts at improving Israeli-Arab relations.
He made the observation in reply to a question at a press conference which followed a reiteration by the Secretary General of his belief that there had been and continued to be “psychological improvement” of Middle East conditions. He cited the “very great quiet” existing on the Israeli-Egyptian border. When he was asked whether the continuing Arab economic warfare did not impair this “psychological” situation, he replied that it was indeed a “dead weight” on efforts to bring about improvements.
He revealed that he had taken up with Egypt the matter of the arrest of Raphael Eylon, the Israeli sailor taken off the Israeli-chartered Danish ship, “Briggite Toft, ” July 22, and since held in an Egyptian prison. He emphasized he would have done this without Israel’s request.
Mr. Hammarskjold declined to pass judgment on the dispute between Col. Byron V. Leary, acting Chief of Staff of the UN Truce Supervisory Organization, and Israel on the issue of UNTSO operations in the demilitarized Syrian-Israeli scene. The Secretary-General said this was a question of interpreting the Syrian-Israeli armistice agreement. He noted merely that Israel claims full sovereignty over the area while UNSTO believes it has certain rights in the area.
He disclosed that he had made an unsuccessful attempt to devise procedures to handle complaints involving Article I of the Syrian-Israeli Armistice agreement. The issue arose when Israel asked Col. Leary to investigate Israeli charges of alleged Syrian violations of Article I, which constitutes a non-aggression treaty. Col. Leary refused to consider the charges based on Israeli claims of Syrian aggressive threats.
Under the proposed plan, which the Secretary General said had been rejected by the two governments, the Secretariat would have served as a “good offices” committee for the contending nations, which do not otherwise have diplomatic contacts on matters which the Mixed Armistice Commission does not take up. He added that, despite this failure, there were still “ways and means” to act and these were being pursued.
Discussing the forthcoming General Assembly, Mr. Hammarskjold said that he would like to see the session, which opens next month, take up “the limited and concrete issues” and solve them, rather than range over all the problems of the Middle East and get nowhere.
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