The U.N. Security Council, by a 9-0 vote, with the Soviet and Ukraine delegates abstaining, today adopted a joint French-Canadian resolution which declares that the recently-concluded Israeli-Arab armistice agreements supersede the Council’s truce order and terminates the services of acting Palestine mediator Dr. Ralph J. Bunche. The Council also emphasized the importance of converting the armistice pacts into permanent peace.
The resolution also provides for continuation of “such of the personnel of the present truce supervision organization as might be required to observe the cease-fire and to assist in the implementation of the armistice agreements.” It reaffirms–pending the final peace settlement–the Council’s cease-fire order of July 15, 1948. The resolution also expressed the hope that the “parties will, at an early date, achieve agreement on the final settlement of all problems outstanding between them” through direct negotiations or through the Conciliation Commission.
In lifting the truce restrictions, the Council automatically lifted limitations on Jewish immigration to Israel which up to now have been technically illegal. The resolution approved at today’s session is a modified version of a draft proposal put forth earlier by Dr. Bunche.
The effect of the resolution adopted today is to lift the arms embargo the Council originally imposed on the Middle East. This issue–forcefully raised by the Israeli delegation earlier–vanished when the Soviet representative failed to mention the subject at today’s meeting.
However, Russian delegate Semyon Tsarapkin today made a strong but fruitless plea for removal of the Conciliation Commission from the Palestine picture and initiation of direct Arab-Israeli negotiations. A series of Soviet amendments designed to clear out immediately all U.N. personnel from the Middle East–including the chief of truce, all of his observers and the Conciliation Commission–were defeated with most of the delegates abstaining, while the U.S. and Britain cast negative votes.
The delegate of France told the Council that he joined the United States and Britain in committing his government against excessive arms shipments to the Middle East, adding that he advocated a ban on the shipment of “weapons of offensive.”
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