U Thant Asks Dr. Jarring to Return to the UN to Discuss Middle East Situation

With Middle East tensions mounting as Arab guerrilla forces continue their terrorist raids across the Lebanese border into Israel, United Nations Secretary General U Thant has asked Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring to return here Tuesday to discuss the Mideast crisis. Mr. Thant, who made the announcement Saturday that his special representative to the Middle East has been asked to return, indicated it would be left to Dr. Jarring to decide whether he should make a new trip to the Middle East capitals he visited on his peace mission in 1968 and 1969.

Informed sources at the United Nations reported Friday that the United States has urged Israel to exercise patience and restraint in dealing with the terrorist problem on the Lebanese border. They said the United States authorities were convinced that the Lebanese regime was sincerely doing everything in its power to restrain the terrorists operating against Israel from Lebanese territory and wanted Israel to give the regime the time it needed. (In Washington Under-Secretary of State Elliot L. Richardson saw Ambassador Itzhak Rabin of Israel and Ambassador Najati Kabbani of Lebanon in separate meetings Friday at the State Department to urge their governments to adopt “all possible steps to keep peace in the area.” He expressed concern over the latest phase in the Mideast crisis.)

Contrary to expectations in view of the seriousness with which the Lebanese border situation has been viewed here and the Israeli warnings of recent days to the United Nations and to the Security Council of the gravity with which Israel regards the terrorist forays, the ambassadors of the Four Powers did not discuss this problem at their long meeting Thursday. That meeting, described by one source as a more satisfactory session than any in recent months, did not reach any decisions or any agreements on any of the many issues and details before the envoys.

American sources said the meeting was distinguished by the fact that for the first time in a long time, there was an absence of rhetoric and denunciation from the Russians and a readiness on the part of Russians and French to talk specifics. Both have been pressed by the Americans to declare what the Arab states would agree to in the line of their commitment to peace to be incorporated in Big Four “guidelines.” United Nations circles stressed Friday that the projected return to UN headquarters of Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring for consultations did not mean immediate resumption of his peace-seeking mission in the Middle East. The consultations envisioned, it was stressed, would be here at the United Nations and would not involve renewal of Dr. Jarring’s peregrinations from capital to capital in the Middle East.