Discussion on the UNRWA meeting and the Refugee Office – UNCCP 205th meeting (Jerusalem) – Summary record

Commenting on the meeting held that morning at Government House with the Relief and Works Agency, the Commission noted that the collaboration between the two bodies was working very well, and expressed satisfaction with the decision to hold a further joint meeting in Beirut on 8 March.

An exchange of views then took place regarding the appointment of a liaison officer to maintain permanent contact with a liaison officer of the Relief and Works Agency. It was agreed to leave it to the Principal Secretary to settle the question with Mr. Kennedy, Director of the Agency.

It was also agreed that all Conciliation Commission documents concerning questions of interest to the Relief and Works Agency should be communicated to it.

Recalling the desire expressed by Mr. Kennedy, Director of the Relief and Works Agency, that for practical reasons the Director of the Commission’s new Refugee Office should be given a title which could not be confused with his own, the CHAIRMAN asked the members of the Commission for their suggestions.

After discussion, it was agreed that the new Office would be called the “Refugee Office of the Conciliation Commission” and that the official in charge of its work would be called “Head of the Palestine Conciliation Commission Refugee Office”.

With regard to the agenda for the meeting with the Relief and Works Agency to be held in Beirut on 8 March, it had been agreed, during the morning’s meeting, to include in that agenda paragraphs 5 and 6 of Mr. Blandford’s memorandum. Consequently, it was decided to ask the General Committee to undertake a preliminary study of those two points and to submit its conclusions to the Commission, which would examine them, taking into account any new,A relevant information which the members might have been able to obtain during the course of the unofficial and official conversations they were planning to have with members of the Arab and Israel Governments.