Chairman Herbert Evatt of the U.N. Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine tonight announced the composition of two nine-member sub-committees which will draft, respectively, a plan for the partitioning of Palestine and a scheme for the formation of a unitary Arab state.
The sub-committee on partition consists of the U.S., the U.S.S.R., Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Poland, South Africa, Uruguay and Venezuela. The sub-committee on an Arab state is composed of Afghanistan, Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen.
The announcement care after several hours of negotiations behind closed doors as Evatt sought to obtain agreement on the membership of the two groups. He had been authorized at the conclusion of this morning’s session to name the members of the sub-committee, after several delegates had refused to serve and general disagreement developed as to the make-up of the two bodies.
The sub-committees are required to report to the full Committee by Oct. 29. They will begin meeting here in open sessions tomorrow morning. The Ad Hoc Committee will reconvene on Oct. 30 to begin discussion of the two reports. Each sub-group contains only adherents of the plan on which it is to work, to avoid the possibility of its reporting back with majority and minority proposals.
FUNCTIONS OF TWO SUB-COMMITTEES ARE DEFINED BY AD HOC CHAIRMAN
Evatt announced that the functions of the committee on partition are as follows: 1. To draw up a detailed plan for the future government of Palestine in accordance with the basic principles of the unanimous recommendations and of the UNSCOP majority plan. 2. To incorporate this plan in the form of recommendations. 3. To consider the exercise of administrative responsibility in Palestine during the transitional period, including the possibility of application of Chap. XII of the Charter (Chap. XII refers to trusteeship.) 4. To consider methods by which the recommendations of the Ad HOc Committee under the first paragraph above would be put into effect.
The functions of the committee on the Arab proposals, as announced by Evatt, are: 1. To draw up a detailed plan for the future government of Palestine in accordance with the basic principles of the proposals submitted to the General Assembly by Saudi Arabia and Iraq and of the proposal submitted to the Ad Hoc Committee by Syria. 2. To incorporate this plan in the form of recommendations.
A Soviet proposal this morning that the sub-committee on partition should be composed of the 11 members of the Security Council, plus Venezuela, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay and Sweden, was defeated 40 to 6, with 10 abstentions.
A Colombian proposal that another sub-committee be formed to deal with the problem of displaced Jews was defeated 19 to 7, with 10 abstentions, after Evatt explained that the other two sub-committees have the right to make recommendations on this subject.
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