The United Nations Security Council approved today a resolution to extend the mandate of the United Nations Emergency Force in the Sinai for one year. The vote was in line with a clause in the second Sinai interim accord specifying renewal annually for a period of three years. The vote was 13-0 with China and Iraq abstaining, the usual pattern of voting by the Council on the UNEF mandate. The vote today was the first time that the current UNEF contingent had had its mandate extended for a full year.
Before the vote, the Council’s president read a letter from Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy, calling for the reconvening of the Geneva peace conference “in the immediate future,” The operative paragraphs of the resolution called on Egypt and Israel to implement the Council’s Resolution 338 of October, 1973, which called for a cease-fire and peace negotiations.
Secretary General Kurt Waldheim told the Council that the new tasks facing UNEF under the latest Israeli-Egyptian accord would require deploying the UN forces over a line twice as long as at present. In his report to the Council last Friday, Waldheim asked for an addition of 840 men to the 3987-member UNEF contingent to meet the new tasks.
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