The World Bank today officially announced that signatures have been affixed to an agreement under which the United Arab Republic will be loaned $56,500,000 to improve the Suez Canal.
The bank approved the loan despite anti-Israel blockade actions in the canal. The agreement was signed by UAR Ambassador Mostafa Kamal, Mahmoud Yunce, chairman of the board of the Suez Canal Authority, and Eugene R. Black, president of the World Bank. The UAR will have 15 years in which to make repayment.
The World Bank made the loan in participation with nine private institutional investors. Egyptian authorities said the loan was obtained with “no strings attached” as pertains to the anti-Israel blockade. They said the blockade would continue in force.
At the meeting of the bank’s board of governors, the executive director representing Israel, Dr. P. Lieftinck of The Netherlands, asked on behalf of Israel that consideration of the loan be postponed because of the latest developments in the canal, No support for this motion developed. Dr. Lieftinck then expressed Israel’s position on the loan itself.
Representatives of the United States, France, China, the Netherlands, and several Latin American countries expressed support for freedom of passage through the canal. The U.S. representative, T. Graydon Upton, while taking a position that the bank cannot consider political considerations, added his expression of regret at complication of the question as a result of the attitude of the United Arab Republic to Israeli shipping. He added that the United States was not insensitive to the recent deterioration of the position.
Yesterday Israel Ambassador Avraham Harman paid an urgent call on Acting Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon to discuss the Suez loan by the World Bank. The meeting lasted 45 minutes.
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