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State Department Raps Egyptian Measure Blaming U.S. for Failure to Achieve Peace

November 20, 1969
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The State Department voiced “regret” today over a resolution adopted by Egypt’s National Assembly which held the United States responsible for the failure to achieve a political solution of the Middle East conflict. Carl Bartch, the department spokesman, said the resolution was “shot through with false charges against the U.S. and fit a pattern of distortion and fabrication which we have noted, with regret, emanating from Cairo.” He also said U.S.-Soviet bilateral talks on the Mideast would be resumed but gave no date.

The Egyptian National Assembly adopted its resolution yesterday after hearing a report from Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad on the latest diplomatic developments. Mr. Riad rejected U.S. peace proposals because, he alleged, they showed “complete support of Israeli aggression.” The resolution claimed that “America is responsible for pushing the Mideast toward a war whose possibilities and effects on world peace and security nobody can foresee.”

Later the official Government spokesman in Cairo, Ismat Abdel Meguid, charged that the latest U.S. proposals deviated from the basic UN peace guidelines laid down in the Security Council’s Nov. 22, 1967 resolution. He laid the blame for the current crisis on “those who help Israel materially, politically and militarily.”

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