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Mondale Urges UN to Help Build Mideast Peace on the Basis of the Egyptian-israeli Agreement

September 16, 1980
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Vice President Walter Mondale today called on the United Nations to reject any calls that would undermine the progress made by the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement and said the UN should help build peace in the Mideast on the foundations of that agreement.

Addressing a meeting at the General Assembly Hall to dedicate a monument in memory of UN Under Secretary General Ralph Bunche, who won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for helping Israel and its Arab neighbors in reaching on armistice agreement, Mondale declared:

“Today. Israel and Egypt live not at truce but at peace. They are exchanging not ammunition but ambassadors. A process for building a just and lasting peace in the Mideast has been created. It must not be jeopardized. It must not be compromised. It deserves to be supported.”

The United Nations, he added, “can best serve the memory of Ralph Bunche by building on the foundation for peace in the Mideast” and by rejecting calls from any who would undermine the progress made.

In paying tribute to Bunche, who died in 1971, Mondale said Bunche helped lay the first stones toward a lasting peace in the Mideast. Bunche, Mondale said, had seen the imperative “of secure Israel at peace with her Arab neighbors, in a region of expanding opportunity for all of its people.”

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