Israel Complains to Security Council on Syria’s Reneging on Talks

Israel complained to the Security Council here today that Syria is reneging on its “unconditional” agreement to participate in discussing an “agreed agenda” in the Israeli-Syrian Mixed Armistice Commission, resorting instead to a “fog” of propaganda coupled with further incitements against Israel’s sovereignty.

The ISMAC session, originally summoned by Secretary-General U Thant, has been in suspension for several weeks, due to Syria’s refusal to stick to the single point on the agenda — the cultivation of farm lands in the demilitarized zones on the Israeli-Syrian frontiers.

Today, Dr. Shabtai Rosenne, Israel’s acting permanent representative here, sent a letter to Bulgaria’s Ambassador Milko Tarabanov, this month’s Council chairman, protesting against Syria’s stalling tactics. It was Dr. Rosenne’s second letter to the Council in two days. Yesterday, he protested vigorously against the recent outbreak of sabotage, mine-laying and penetration of Israeli territory by Arab infiltrators, listing seven specific instances of that type in the past week.

“It is unfortunate,” today’s Israeli communication said, “that the Government of Syria has chosen the way of propaganda and incitement to war and violence, instead of carrying out in good faith its obligation under the Charter and the general armistice agreement and its explicit acceptance without any condition of the proposal regarding the meeting of the Mixed Armistice Commission and its agreed agenda.

“Through the fog of Syrian verbiage, one inacceptable fact is clear: It is Syria that has brought the current meeting of the Mixed Armistice Commission to its present stalemate by its obstinacy in refusing to adhere to the agreed agenda while, at the same time, intensifying its aggressive activities in the area on the one hand, and its trumped-up tendentious propaganda before the Security Council on the other. “