The Security Council will convene here tomorrow morning on Israel’s request for an “urgent” meeting on complaints that Syria has committed “acts of aggression” by committing armed groups to invade Israel for purposes of murder and sabotage. The formal complaint also accused Syria of violating the United Nations Charter and the Syrian-Israeli armistice agreement of 1949 by openly inciting to threats and to war against Israel. Lord Caradon, of Britain, this month’s president of the Security Council, fixed the date and time of the session in response to Israel’s urgent request.
Meanwhile, press dispatches received today reported that the Soviet Union had delivered a stiff note, in Jerusalem, to Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, purportedly repeating charges previously made in the official Soviet press, accusing Israel of trying to overthrow the Syrian Government, which is a leftist regime. The USSR envoy to Israel, Dmitri Chuvakhin, met with Mr. Eshkol yesterday, in the second session on two successive days. The reports today stated that Mr. Chuvakhin had handed such a note to Mr. Eshkol at yesterday’s meeting.
In the past 13 years, the USSR has vetoed all Security Council resolutions favoring the Israeli case whenever an Arab-Israeli case had come up for Council action, and has consistently supported Arab views against Israel on all U.N. issues.
When the Council meeting is held tomorrow, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, who has been here for a month attending the General Assembly, is expected to address the opening session. Mr. Eban, who had been scheduled to leave tomorrow for other official appointments in Europe, postponed his departure to participate in the Council deliberations on the complaint against Syria.
OTHER GOVERNMENTS SEEN SYMPATHETIC TO ISRAEL’S U.N. DIPLOMATIC MOVE
Aides close to Mr. Eban indicated today that the decision to convene the Security Council was taken in consultation between Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and the Foreign Minister, in the light of conversations in friendly capitals which revealed understanding of Israel’s security problems and of the urgent necessity to halt infiltration and border tension.
It is understood that governments sympathetic to Israel suggested that a Council discussion might be a useful course, despite the past history of parliamentary deadlocks in the Council. Another factor in the decision was Israeli belief that world opinion would be receptive to a further development of Israel’s case. The statement by Syrian leaders of their intention to maintain and encourage guerrilla activity against Israel played a decisive part in Israel’s decision.
It is the Israeli view here that Syria should be challenged to define its basic policy on whether it accepts its United Nations Charter and contractual obligations toward Israel. Israeli circles indicated today that Mr. Eban’s address to the Security Council tomorrow would be a major pronouncement on Israel’s policy toward Syria and on the measures necessary to prevent threats and acts on aggression in the Middle East.
Ambassador Roger Seydoux, head of the French delegation to the U.N., conferred here with Mr. Eban today. It is understood that the discussion concentrated mainly on the forthcoming discussion in the Security Council of Israel’s complaint against Syria. (A Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch from Paris today reported that Israel’s envoy to the French capital, Ambassador Walter Eytan, held a conference on the same issue last night with French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville.)
Earlier, Mr. Eban conferred with the Foreign Minister of Sweden, Thorsten Nillsson. The Swedish statesman expressed his appreciation of Mr. Eban’s address to the General Assembly on problems of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. (Sweden is not now a member of the Security Council.) The two ministers also discussed the Arab refugee problem. Mr. Nillsson invited Mr. Eban to pay an official visit to Sweden in 1967.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
