The United Nations Trusteeship Council will meet here Tuesday to consider a procedure for translating into reality the U.N. General Assembly’s decision of last week to internationalize Jerusalem under the administration of the Council, it was reported today. However, the real work of the Council is expected to be completed at its next regular meeting, schedule to open in Geneva early next January.
The Assembly decision was adopted Friday night by a vote of 38-14, with seven abstentions. The United States and Britain joined Israel in opposing the resolution, while the Soviet bloc, the Arab bloc and a majority of the Latin American nations voted for it.
No volunteers to serve on a trusteeship mission to Jerusalem to implement the Assembly resolution were to be found at Flushing Meadow or here this week-end. Some of the delegates were of the opinion that Dr. Herbert V. Evatt, Australian Minister for External Affairs and head of the Australian delegation to the U.N., would be a logical candidate for U.N. commissioner to Jerusalem since his delegation sponsored the internationalization resolution.
The composition of the Trusteeship Council which will begin to wrestle with the Jerusalem problem this week will include an overwhelming majority of the member nations which voted for the resolution. Of the twelve members of the Council, eight–Argentina, Australia, Belgium, China, France, Iraq, the Philippines and the U.S.S.R.–voted for the measure and will be faced with putting it into effect. The Unite States and Britain will represent the opponents of the resolution, while the other two Council members–the Dominican Republic and New Zealand abstained.
A spokesman for the American delegation stated that it had not yet adopted a definite policy on the future of Jerusalem. In the light of the Soviet amendment to the original Jerusalem proposal, that the statute be democratized further, the delegates may need further time for discussing the Jerusalem issue. It is hoped here that the U.S. will develop a full debate on this point in the Council.
It is authoritatively estimated that the Council can complete the drafting of the Jerusalem statute within two weeks, but no one expects this to happen because of the intra-Council debate which is anticipated between the Anglo-American delegates and the representatives of the nations which voted for the resolution.
Before the U.N. Assembly adjourned yesterday, it adopted a budget of $8,000,000 for the internationalization of Jerusalem. Israel voted against adoption of this section of the overall $49,600,000 budget.
SHARETT ASSAILS RESOLUTION; PREDICTS JERUSALEM JEWS WILL IGNORE IT
Israel Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett assailed the resolution, after its passage, and declared that those who sponsored it “charged themselves with a grave moral responsibility for the moral authority of the United Nations.” During the course of the debate which preceded the vote, Mr. Sharett predicted that the population of the city will ignore the international mandate.
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