The American Embassy today confirmed that it was meeting with British representatives on the procedure for submission of the Palestine issue to the United Nations.
An embassy spokesman said that the State Department–which yesterday denied any knowledge of the talks–was not informed of the discussions because they were not being conducted by special representative, but during the regular contacts being maintained on the Palestine problem. The embassy declined to disclose details of the conersations, referring all queries to the Foreign Office, which said tonight that no information was yet available.
U.S. Ambassador Lewis W. Douglas told his first press conference today that he was not certain whether he would discuss with the British Government the American objections to the establishment by the United Nations of a fact-finding committee on Palestine.
(Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary general of the Arab League, announced in Cairo today that the political committee of the Arab League had rejected the U.N. proposal to set up an inquiry commission. The entire Palestine question is being reviewed by the political committee, which is now meeting in the Egyptian capital, he added.)
Referring to Palestine today during a debate in Commons on Britain’s world-wide defense commitmants, Minister of Defense A.V. Alexander said that although the country’s future has been placed before the United Nations, law and order must still be preserved and, therefore, “since the Mandate in ours, it is our responsibility. Our forces must remain strong enough to assert the authority of the administration for the safety of the country and guarding British interests,” he added. He said that Palestine was a mandatory responsibility of World War I which had been aggravated by World War II.
Konni Zilliacus, a leader of the Labor “robels,” who have been demanding a reductin in British forces throughout the world to meet man-power needs at home, pointed out that the British Government had assumed the mandate of its own volition. Sir Ralph Glyn, Conservative, said that the mandate had been forced upon Britain, and the quicker she withdrew from Palestine the better her position would be.
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