The United States Government has rejected a request made by U.N. mediator for Palestine Count Folke Bernadotte to provide American troops for use in keeping the truce in Palestine, Secretary of State George C. Marshall told a press conference today.
Bernadotte asked the U.S. to send a body of American troops to Palestine to assist in keeping order there until a U.N. police force of about 2,000 which he requested the U.N. to establish could be formed, Secretary Marshall said. The United States, he added, rejected the request to send American troops but the Security Council is still working on the question of a police force and has not yet come to a decision. He indicated that the U.S. would abide by that decision. Marshall pointed out that the U.S. has already agreed to Count Bernadotte’s request for 125 U.S. truce observers in Palestine.
No decision has yet been made by the State Department on another request received from Bernadotte asking for foodstuffs and D.D.T. to aid Arab refugees in Palestine, he said. The matter is being discussed with various government agencies to see what might be done, he added. He voiced the hope that American relief agencies will respond in “their usual manner” to the situation, because it “is a very serious one.”
Asked if the British Government had recently asked this government to join in new discussions on Palestine, Secretary Marshall at first said that he did not know Then he explained that the matter had been a subject of discussion between the two governments as long as he had been Secretary of State and particularly during the last six months.
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