United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold is expected to arrive in Jerusalem Tuesday, December 3, for a short visit, Israeli officials said today.
(At United Nations headquarters, it was announced that Mr. Hammarskjold would leave for Beirut Friday evening, fly from the Lebanese capital to Amman Sunday–in a UN plane–and while in the area would visit Jerusalem and Damascus as well.)
The Israeli officials indicated a belief that Mr. Hammarskjold will concentrate chiefly on the current Israel-Jordan tension. “We have no doubt that the tension created by Jordan will be in the foreground. and particularly the convoy issue.” This was viewed here as a possibility that behind-the scenes activity by the UN might yet yield results on the convoy to Mt. Scopus.
Noting that the visit to this area was on Mr. Hammarskjold’s own initiative, observers here hold out the likelihood that he will also take the initiative to broach wider issues than the Israel Jordan tension. If he does, Israeli officials indicated, Israel will decide on the spot its attitude to any proposal he may make.
(Ambassador Abba Eban, head of the Israel delegation at the UN, visited Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold yesterday to discuss “the scope and purpose” of Mr. Hammarskjold’s forthcoming visit to the Middle East. “The most urgent problem preoccupying Israel” at this moment, including frontier problems and the Egyptian seizure, recently, of the Israeli fishing trawler Doron, were discussed between Mr. Eban and the UN chief, according to an Israeli spokesman. Mr. Eban is understood also to have protested against the decision by the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission which accused Israel of abducting a Jordanian who was actually caught on Israel territory as an infiltrator)
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