World Events in a Month

World Events in a Month

This corner is written by: Ziyadeh Awwad

The question of Egypt still heads the world's pressing questions; over the past few weeks it has been the preoccupation of Arab and Western circles alike, and it has claimed the attention of the General Assembly in New York and of the conference of the fifteen ministers of the Atlantic Pact who met recently in the French capital.

There is no doubt that the situation which prevailed in the Middle and Near East and in a large group of the states of Western and Eastern Europe came close to sundering the bonds of the relations existing between the states of that continent on the one hand and the states of the neighboring peoples on the other. The members of the Atlantic Pact were buffeted by violent winds of differences and disputes in assessing the circumstances and the causes that drove two great Western powers, France and Britain, to attack Egypt, while Israel moved toward the Egyptian borders, sowing them with ruin and destruction, and striking from its account every meaning of humanity, and that remaining part of man which is conscience and justice.

At last wisdom prevailed: the General Assembly resolved, by the unanimity of its members, to ask the three states — Britain, France, and Israel — to withdraw their forces at once from Egyptian territory. The three states found no way but to submit; they announced their acceptance of the United Nations resolutions and set about withdrawing their soldiers from Port Said, Port Fuad, Ismailia, and Sinai, leaving behind them the soldiers of the United Nations to occupy those places in preparation for their return to Egypt — which has won its national struggle for liberation, just as its national idea has triumphed: its faith in the right of peoples to freedom, dignity, and sovereignty.

At the beginning of last month the French and British foreign ministers, Pineau and Lloyd, announced that the French and British governments would submit to the United Nations orders requiring the withdrawal of their forces from Egypt; the two chambers likewise announced that the United Nations had taken upon itself the clearing of the Suez Canal and the restoration of navigation in it. On this basis the two governments won their votes of confidence.

On December 4 the United Nations voted on the American draft resolution concerning the dispatch of international observers to Hungary to investigate the present conditions there. The foreign minister of Hungary welcomed a visit by Mr. Hammarskjöld to his country, but soon excused himself from carrying out the visit on the date fixed for it, December 16. The United Nations, however, did not accept the Hungarian minister's point of view, and voted on another draft resolution condemning the Soviet Union and Hungary for their brutal acts against the workers and the opponents of Communism — which led the foreign minister of Hungary to withdraw from the meetings, and Russia's delegate to submit a counter draft resolution accusing the United States of America of interfering in Hungary's internal affairs.

On Saturday, December 8, General Wheeler, the American expert in navigation matters and the United Nations delegate for the work of clearing the Suez Canal, arrived in Egypt. Wheeler began his contacts with the Egyptian officials and visited the various points where the work is to be carried out. General Wheeler declared that the clearing of the Canal would take a length of time that cannot be fixed exactly.

The ministers of the North Atlantic Pact began their meetings in Paris on Tuesday, December 10,

under the chairmanship of the foreign minister of Italy. These meetings were preceded by certain meetings among the foreign ministers of France, Britain, and America, to consider the present situation in the Middle East, and between the foreign ministers of these states and the prime minister of Turkey and the delegate of Greece, concerning the situation in Cyprus.

The fifteen ministers concluded their meetings in Paris on the night of Friday, December 14, with a communiqué in which they declared the necessity of following the developments of the situation in the Middle East region and the conditions prevailing in many of the states of Eastern Europe. The American Secretary of Defense likewise announced that his government would furnish the countries of the Pact with modern weapons capable of firing atomic projectiles. But what caught the observers' attention was the reservation shown by Mr. Dulles, the American Secretary of State, toward the recommendations approved by the Pact's council, providing that the member states of the Atlantic Pact consult together whenever pressing international circumstances required such consultations. Mr. Dulles said that his government would undertake to inform its allies of every urgent development, but that it could not ask for consultation when actions demanded speed of execution — as, for instance, should People's China attack the territory of Formosa.

The American government announced in the middle of last month that it had allocated the sum of one billion and 300 million dollars to aid the British government in the economic crisis it is suffering after the economic

situation created by the Suez crisis. It added that it would increase shipments of petroleum to the Western states harmed by the stoppage of navigation in the Egyptian canal.

His Excellency Mr. Shukri al-Quwatli, President of the Syrian Republic, delivered on Thursday afternoon, December 6, a speech in the amphitheater of the Syrian University, in which he announced adherence to the policy his government has laid down toward the present Arab situation. His Excellency said: Syria belongs neither to the East nor to the West.

The Jordanian government asked Iraq to withdraw its forces from Jordan, after the improvement of conditions in the Middle East. Iraq had sent some of its armed forces to Jordan in anticipation of any Israeli aggression against it. The Iraqi government agreed to the Jordanian request and at once began the withdrawal of its forces.

The Japanese and Russian governments concluded on December 12 the Moscow agreements ending the state of war between the two countries.

Governor Harding announced, immediately upon his arrival from London in Nicosia on the night of Friday, December 14, that the new constitution of Cyprus would be proclaimed very soon. Consultations have taken place between the Greek and British governments, through the British Colonial Secretary, on this subject, and the British minister will visit Ankara to this end.

Mr. Nuri al-Said, Prime Minister of Iraq, delivered on the evening of Sunday, December 16, a speech broadcast by Radio Baghdad and lasting some three hours, in which the Iraqi Premier treated the problems of the states of the Middle East in the light of the Communist and Zionist danger to the existence of the nations of the East. This speech had varied echoes, in Arab circles in particular and among the foreign states in general, according to the political currents to which one group as against another adheres.