A recommendation suggesting that Israel suspend its afforestation project in the neutral 600-acre zone around Government House area, south of Jerusalem, and that discussions be arranged between Jordan and Israel to settle the dispute over this zone, was contained in a report distributed today among all members of the United Nations Security Council. The report was prepared by Col. Byron V. Leary, Acting Chief of the UN Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine.
Col. Leary, who was asked by the Security Council early this month to investigate Jordans charges that Israel had violated the 1949 armistice agreement by plowing land and planting trees in the area, found both parties–but chiefly Jordan–guilty of violating the demilitarized character of the zone.
The report said that the UN truce team found 15 Israeli border police, armed with rifles and submachine guns, in the zone as a guard over the labor force. It also found block houses and sandbagged dwellings and old, but recently cleaned, military diggings. On the Jordanian side, the report said, there were numerous trenches and firing pits, recently deepened and sandbagged, and telephone lines running from various fortified buildings. It also stated that there”has been a continual violation of the demilitarized status of the zone by Jordan through the use for military traffic of the Jerusalem-Beth-lehem-Hebron highway which enters the zone in two places. “
Col. Leary recommended that an arrangement be arrived at “which would take into account to some extent at least the changes which have taken place since 1949” He suggested that Israel and Jordan meet and discuss civilian activities in the zone and that such discussions be conducted through the UN Mixed Armistice Commission machinery.
“In order to create an atmosphere which would be more conducive to fruitful discussion, the Government of Israel (should) suspend its afforestation project within the Zone pending the outcome of such discussion,” Col. Leary said in his recommendations. “Such discussion (should) be completed within a period of two months, since this period is considered to be sufficient if both parties make a sincere effort to reach a solution. The Security Council (should) be advised of the result of the discussion.”
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