The United States is making a formal protest against the action of the Egyptian Government last week in seizing the cargo of the U.S. merchant ship, the Flying Trader, on the pretext that it was bound for Israel, a State Department official said today.
The protest is “presumably” based on the grounds that the United States has never recognized the existence of a state of war between Egypt and Israel. The Egyptians, who seized the cargo over the “energetic” protests of the American Consul in Port Said maintained that the cargo was destined for Israel.
The U.S. Government also considered the action of the Egyptian Government to be contrary to international practice and the Sues Canal Convention of 1888 which provides that all vessels shall be permitted free transit at all times through the canal.
A State Department spokesman said last week that the 38 tractors seized by the Egyptians were part of an original shipment of 51 tractors that had been skipped from New York bound for Tel Aviv and Haifa. Because of “undue delay in discharge” at Haifa, the spokesman said, only 12 tractors were taken off the ship and the rest were shipped to Bombay where they remained in storage until their New York owner requested their return to New York. The rest of the cargo, 4,000 bags of rice leaded in Siam, was bound for Genoa for trans-shipment to “various firms in Switzerland,” the spokesmen said. The rice was also seized by the Egyptian Government.
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