Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Takeo Miki said here that the UN Security Council Resolution 242 has “two principal components,” Israeli withdrawal to its-pre-June 5, 1967 borders and the “legitimate rights” of the Palestinian refugees. He made no mention of the resolution’s guarantee to Israel of “safe and secure borders” in outlining Japan’s position in a news conference at the Japanese Embassy last night.
Miki, who met with newsmen after a two-hour meeting with Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger at the State Department, indicated Japan’s extreme sensitivity against arousing Arab ire. He pointed out Japan’s “degree of dependency” on oil imports “unparalleled” among major industrial nations and that 73.5 percent of “our energy comes from oil.” Arab oil producers successfully pressured Japan after the Yom Kippur War to adopt a pro-Arab position.
Miki, who came to Washington after touring Arab countries, said that Japan would assist Arab countries in technical developments and other ways. He said that a policy of cooperation be tween oil producers and users, rather than confrontation, was essential.
A group representing the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington distributed “An Open Letter” to the government and people of Japan stating, in part that the only way Japan can overcome the current oil blackmail crisis “is to discontinue her new policy of capitulation to Arab oil sheikhs and instead to cooperate with the United States and other oil consuming nations in arriving at a unified resistance to blackmail.”
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.
