Ambassador Abba Eban will submit tomorrow a memorandum to UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold presenting the views of the Israel Government on most, If not all, phases of the current situation in connection with the withdrawal of Israel’s troops and emphasizing specifically the need for clarification of the future role of the United Nations Emergency Force now in the Sinai Peninsula.
British sources here implied today that Mr. Hammarskjold needs no further mandate or resolution from the UN General Assembly to deploy the United Nations Emergency Force or to determine its length of stay in the areas it may occupy.
The length of UNEF’s stay “should be determined by the fulfillment of its functions, ” a highly authoritative British source stated. He made it clear that in the British view UNEF’s functions include not only securing the cease-fire as between Israel and Egypt, which is already in effect, but also “ensuring that there is no resumption of hostilities.” Those interpretations of UNEF’s functions should be, in the British view, subjected to “neither Israeli nor Egyptian veto.”
A spokesman for the United States delegation here refused to discuss in detail the viewpoint expressed by the British sources. Instead the American spokesman referred to last week’s speech by Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., chairman of the American delegation. who spoke in general terms of the need for UNEF deployment. The U.S. spokesman, as has been his custom for the last two weeks, again reiterated that Washington “is expecting from Israel full compliance” with the Nov. 2 resolution calling for withdrawal of troops from Egyptian territory.
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