President Anwar Sadat said in an address to the General Assembly today that Egypt was asking for “immediate consultations” to reconvenes the Geneva conference “in the near future” and that Egypt would ask the Assembly to give the Palestine Liberation Organization full representative status at the Geneva conference on an equal footing with other parties represented there. He also warned that Egypt would resort to force to liberate its occupied territory if efforts for a peaceful resolution of the Middle East conflict failed.
The Egyptian leader arrived in New York shortly before noon under heavy security precautions. More than 1000 police officers were assigned to guard him. He is the first Egyptian chief of state to come here since the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser attended the 16th General Assembly session in 1960. Sadat’s address was his first before the world organization.
He told the Assembly: “Now that a disengagement agreement has been achieved on both the Egyptian and Syrian fronts, and a second disengagement on the Egyptian front, and hopes are pinned on a second agreement on the Syrian front, I believe that it is time now to reconvene the Geneva peace conference in the presence of all parties concerned.”
RESOLUTION WILL BE PRESENTED
He continued: “Consequently, I officially call on the United Nations Secretary General and the two superpowers to start immediate consultations with all parties concerned in the near future….The Geneva meeting should continue without interruption to deal with all aspects of the problem to achieve a just and permanent peace….As you know, I could have made my request directly to both the Secretary General and the two superpowers, but with all conviction I made my official request from this rostrum because there is a close physical link between Geneva and the UN.”
Sadat said the Egyptian delegation would present a resolution during the current session asking the General Assembly to recognize the PLO as a full and equal party represented at the Geneva conference.
He warned that unless a full Middle East peace was achieved. “We would have no alternative but to resort to the holy duty of liberating our territory and restoring our legitimate rights by other means provided in your Charter including Article 51.” Article 51 of the UN Charter states that member states have the inherent right to the armed defense of their territory against attack.
The Egyptian President spent about three hours at UN headquarters receiving the chairmen of various UN delegations and attending a luncheon given for him by Secretary General Kurt Waldheim in the Security Council lounge to which about 70 delegates and top officials had been invited. Tonight he is to address the Economic Club of New York at the Waldorf-Astoria.
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.
