The 100-member central committee of the World Council of Churches adopted here last night a statement dealing with the Middle East, calling for “international guarantees” of the independence and integrity of all the states in the Middle East, naming specifically “both Israel and the Arab nations.”
The Council embraces 223 Protestant, Anglican and Eastern Orthodox churches in more than 80 countries, including the Soviet Union and the Arab states. The vote on the statement was nearly unanimous, only the representatives of the USSR and Hungary voting against it. One ranking delegate from the Soviet Union, Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad, abstained. A Soviet proposal that Israel be told to withdraw its military forces to the pre-June war armistice lines was voted down.
The statement also said: “No nation should be allowed to keep or annex the territory of another nation by armed force. This applies to the present situation. National boundaries should rest upon international agreements, freely reached between or accepted by the people directly concerned.” That last sentence was interpreted as calling for direct negotiations between the Arab states and Israel.
The Council also called for an international agreement on access to the holy places in Jerusalem, without mentioning the plan advanced two months ago by Pope Paul VI for placing those shrines under international control. The Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, of the United States, general secretary of the Council, explained he favored the granting of “free access” to the holy places “by whoever is sovereign at the moment.”
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