The Carter Administration has explicitly denied that American combat troops will be sent to Sinai to supervise the Israeli withdrawal from that territory in accordance with the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The denial came last Friday from State Department spokesman Hodding Carter, following a report that the United Nations Security Council appears unlikely to renew the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) mandate which has been functioning between the Israeli and Egyptian forces on the Sinai peninsula since the end of the Yom Kippur War.
Carter said that “the U.S. believes firmly” that the mandate should be renewed by the Security Council before it expires July 24. He pointed to Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, adopted after the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, respectively, and “other resolutions” both in the Council and the UN General Assembly indicating the “important role” of the UN in currying out those resolutions.
With the Soviet Union considering a veto of a continuation of UNEF in support of the Arab states with which it is aligned against the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Carter made it clear that the U.S. is emphasizing to the Soviet government not to block UNEF’s continuation. “We are in close consultation with Security Council members,” he said, “and making our strong views known. This clearly includes the Soviet Union. I cannot predict the outcome of these consultations. “Carter did not identify the other Council members.
Saying he denied “totally” that the U.S. is going to put troops in Sinai if the Security Council refuses to act and the other nations do not go along with the U.S. position, Carter said “as a matter of policy of this government there is no planning, no decision, no agreement — in fact a rejection of the idea of putting American troops into Sinai.” He stressed that the U.S. monitoring units in Sinai do not constitute a military presence “and does not and will not have a military role.”
Asked whether the U.S. will support an Egyptian Israeli force to supervise the withdrawal activities, Carter said it was a “conjectural possibility” but “I don’t see that envisioned right now.” He did not deny that the question of the Sinai force would be discussed when President Carter and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev meet in Vienna June 15 for three days to discuss principally the finalization of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT-2).
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
