Palestine question – Iraq, Saudi Arabia replies to Acting Mediator on armistice – Press release

UNITED NATIONS

Department of Public Information

Press and Publications Bureau

Lake Success, New York

Press Release PAL/436

23 February 1949

SAUDI ARABIAN AND IRAQI REPLIES TO ACTING MEDIATOR

(The following was received at the UN Headquarters from the Information Officer

with the Acting Mediator in Rhodes.)

Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, UN Acting Mediator in Palestine, today, in Rhodes, made the two following statements to the press:

(1) "A communication from the government of Saudi Arabia has been delivered to the senior UN Observer in Cairo, the full text of which has come to me today.  The message is the Saudi Arabian reply to my invitation of 30

January.  It states, among other things, that the Arab Saudi Arabian Troops participating in the Palestine campaign do not constitute an independent front and that there is no reason why the Saudi Arabian government should enter into any negotiations to conclude a new truce while the truce which was imposed in July is still effective.  The reply then states that the Saudi Arabian government accepts the decisions which have already been adopted or which may be adopted by the Arab League, in respect to the situation in Palestine.

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(2) "My representative in Amman and Baghdad has received a response from the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Iraq to my invitation of 30 January regarding the establishment of an armistice.  The response states that the terms of the armistice agreements which may be entered into by the Arab States which are 'neighbors of Palestine' — Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon — will be regarded as acceptable to Iraq."

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