Foreign Ministry spokesmen refused to confirm or deny tonight a report in the evening newspaper Maariv that UN Secretary General U Thant has told Israel that its planned Independence Day parade in Jerusalem next Thursday was an infringement of last year’s General Assembly and Security Council resolutions on the status of Jerusalem and a breach of the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and Jordan. (No comment on the report was forthcoming tonight from the Israel delegation to the United Nations.)
According to Maariv, the Foreign Ministry registered its anger over Thant’s invocation of the armistice agreements by refusing to accept his note and sent back the original. Those agreements are considered by Israel to have been rendered null and void when Jordan attacked Israel last June. They have since been superceded by the cease-fire agreement which places the Israel-Jordan demarcation line on the Jordan River, Maariv pointed out.
According to its report, Mr. Thant did not demand that Israel cancel the parade. The parade will follow a route which passes, in part, through East Jerusalem. Jordan made this the subject of a complaint to the current President of the Security Council, Ambassador Yacov Malik, of the Soviet Union, who apparently passed it on to the Secretary-General. The latter pursued Jordan’s claim without consulting with the Security Council which is regarded in Israel as a one-sided move that exceeds the authority of the Secretary-General, Maariv said.
Officials here said tonight that the Independence Day parade in Jerusalem has no connection with the status of the city or the cease-fire agreement with Jordan endorsed by the Security Council. They pointed out that the cease-fire agreement is the only valid document in the situation at present and that within its limits, Israeli troops may move anywhere, in any numbers and in any strength right down to the banks of the Jordan River. It is expected that this point will be stressed by the Israeli delegation at the United Nations.
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.
