British Officials Confer in London, Washington, Paris, Cairo on Fighting in Negev

British Foreign Office pressure and diplomatic activity centered over the week-end on four capitals. In London, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin spent New Year’s closeted with Middle Eastern advisers.

In Cairo, Chapman Andrews, British Minister, had a long interview with the new Premier, Ibrahim Abdel Hadi Pasha. In Washington, Sir Oliver Franks, the British Ambassador met with Acting Secretary of State Robert A. Lovett, and in Paris French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman was kept fully informed of British moves.

The central subject of all these four conferences was the grave view taken by Bevin over the situation which has arisen in southern Palestine on the Egyptian frontier. The British Government, it is learned, has indicated that it would propose at the United Nations Security Council meeting this month in New York, that an arms embargo should partially be lifted and that Britain would propose to supply arms to those Arab states with whom it had treaties of alliance and which were, in the British view, victims of aggression.