Britain Will Mediate with Israel Before Coming to Jordan’s Aid

British Foreign Office sources today termed as “pretty accurate” an assertion by Jordan Foreign Minister Dr. Hussein Khalidi that what Foreign Secretary Eden’s recent statement in the House of Commons on the Middle East meant was that Britain would come to the aid of Jordan if it were attacked even against Israel, in the event that Britain and Jordan had attempted to find and failed to achieve a peaceful settlement of an Israel-Jordan dispute.

These same sources further agreed with Dr. Khalidi’s assertion that Britain’s obligations under the United Nations Charter did not prevent her from coming to Jordan’s aid. The Foreign Office sources did note, however, that Britain was obligated to seek every peaceful means of solving any dispute between Israel and Jordan.

Furthermore, these sources were not inclined to accept the interpretation that the present border tension amounted to a state of war and pointed out that Jordan apparently felt the same way since it had not invoked the Anglo-Jordan treaty of 1948. Asked what would be likely to happen if Jordan were to invoke the treaty, these sources said that while Britain would enter consultations with Jordan on measures the two states would take together, Britain would seek through the UN and other means to have the conflict resolved peaceably.

(From Cairo it was reported that Dr. Khalidi also said that Eric Johnston, President Eisenhower’s special envoy to the Middle East, would be “ill-advised to come to Jordan” although he “probably will not be barred from the country if he still wants to come here. Mr. Johnston, who last year presented the American plan for regional development of the Jordan River resources to Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, has delayed his return to the Middle East this year to discuss the attitude of the various states to this plan because of Arab hostility.)