U. N. General Assembly Opens; Middle East Crisis High on Agenda

With the Middle East crisis high on the agenda as an issue of extreme urgency, the eleventh annual session of the United Nations General Assembly convened here this afternoon in an atmosphere of great tension.

Efforts at further solution of the Israel-Arab conflicts in general, and Israel-Egyptian relations in particular, have now been transferred from the special emergency session of the Assembly to the regular meeting which opened today. In order to do away with the usual General Assembly procedures, the Middle East question will be discussed by the Assembly as a whole, in plenary meeting, instead of being bound by the red tape of committee discussions.

Israel is represented here this year by the largest and strongest delegation it has sent here since the state was established in 1948. Ambassador Abba Eban is again chairman of the delegation, but is expected to relinquish the chairmanship this week to Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, who will arrive before the end of the week.

At the emergency session of the General Assembly, Mr. Eban made it clear that Israel is ready to enter into negotiations with Egypt to settle all outstanding questions between them. He declared that Israel would welcome a call by the General Assembly “for a freely negotiated settlement” between the two countries. However he added, it was for Egypt and Israel and no others to determine the conditions for their peaceful co-existence.

FIRST U. N. TROOPS TO LAND IN EGYPT TODAY; HAMMARSKJOLD FLIES TO CAIRO

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, who is flying tomorrow to Rome and thence to Cairo to discuss with the Egyptian Government details regarding placement of the UN police force, announced today that Egypt had agreed to he stationing of UN troops on its territory. In Rome, Mr. Hammarskjold will confer with Maj. Gen. E. L. M. Burns, chief of the new UN command. On Thursday he expects to be in Cairo.

The first troops of the UN command will land in Egypt tomorrow, Mr. Hammarskjold said. He refused, however, to go into any details regarding coordination of troop withdrawals by Israel, on the one hand, and Franco-British forces on the other, declaring: “That is staff work and for that reason is entirely under the authority of Gen. Burns.”

The Secretary General also declined to state whether agreement had been reached on where the first contingent of UN forces would be stationed. “That is a technical matter on which discussions are at a very advanced stage,” he said, “but where I should not like to go into details.”

It became known here today that Burma, which is among the UN members which offered troops to the UN command, has been told that its troops will not be acceptable. No reason for this refusal was given here. However it was believed that the fact that a number of high Burmese army officers had received their training in Israel had influenced the decision.