The State Department still adheres to its view that the arms shipments made or planned for Iraq are not considered enough to bring about any local imbalance in the Middle East, it was learned today from official circles.
It is understood that Israel representatives have been told that the Turkish-Iraqi agreement has not led to any change in the dimension of these shipments since the original program was conceived in anticipation of the “northern tier” project now taking shape.
The Israel attitude continues to be that the principle of such unilateral arms agreements is unsound in itself and creates an adverse change in the political balance regardless of the dimensions of the shipments.
A broadcast from Cairo monitored here today blasted the projected Turkish-Iraq pact and charged Turkey with “continuously supporting Israel.” The Egyptian broadcast said that “Turkey was the first Middle East state to recognize Israel, in defiance of all the Arab governments” and charged that Turkey is Israel’s greatest customer and accounts for 36 percent of Israel’s exports. “Had it not been for Turkey, the Arab blockade on Israel would have produced effective results long ago.” the broadcast stated.
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