IO Files
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. D. Vernon McKay of the United States Delegation to the Trusteeship Council
US/T/111
Subject: The Ewe Problem
Participants: | Mr. Awni Khalidy, Iraqi Delegation | ||
Mr. Benjamin Gerig | } | United States Delegation | |
Mr. Vernon McKay |
Mr. Gerig and Mr. McKay approached Mr. Khalidy at Lake Success this afternoon to persuade him to accept the text of a tenth draft of a proposed Iraqi-United States amendment to the Anglo-French proposal on the Ewe problem. (The French and UK Delegations expressed to the US Delegation this morning their approval of this text, although they informed us that they would abstain when it was put to the vote).
Mr. Khalidy stated that his government had authorized him to join the US in presenting a suitable text of a draft resolution. He said that he had cabled his government the text which he had discussed yesterday with Mr. Gerig and Mr. McKay, and which he was sure would be acceptable. (This text differed in three important parts from the text which the French and UK Delegations this morning insisted upon maintaining without change). Mr. Gerig reminded Mr. Khalidy that the text Khalidy had wired to his government was only a text which we had discussed provisionally, and not one that the US had agreed to. Mr. Khalidy recognized this fact but said that he did not think he could go beyond this text.
The three disputed points were then discussed and rediscussed at considerable length. Mr. Gerig and Mr. McKay stated that the US felt that the Considering clause and the Urges clause should be maintained, (see Attachment A) and that the words “seriousness of the situation and the desirability” should be replaced by the word “necessity” in the Draws the attention clause. Mr. Khalidy contested all [Page 568] three points, Mr. Gerig and Mr. McKay pointed out that all three clauses had already been considerably modified in order to meet Mr. Khalidy’s views. Mr. Gerig said that the US Delegation was in a difficult position because the Department had studied the problem at great length, had in fact taken the matter up at the level of the Secretary’s office, and the Department wanted the Delegation to maintain all three of the points which Khalidy now opposed.
Mr. Khalidy responded that he could see the difficulty of our position and, in a spirit of cooperation, he was willing once more to go over the three contested points to see if there was a way out of the impasse. On the Considering clause, Mr. McKay pointed out that it had already been modified twice to meet Khalidy’s views; the words “were such as to enable” had been changed to “represented a sincere effort to enable”, and later the word “sincere” had been dropped along with the word “true” in the next line. Mr. Khalidy stated that these changes had improved the clause from his point of view but he still didn’t like it. He suggested, however, that it might be acceptable if “all sections of the population” could be changed to “the population”. Mr. Gerig said he was sorry but the Department considered this an important point. (We knew that it was an important phrase to the French). Mr. Khalidy then suggested “the population concerned”, and Mr. Gerig countered with “the sections of the population concerned”. Mr. Khalidy accepted this change.
Mr. Khalidy then again asked for the deletion of the Urges paragraph. Mr. McKay recalled that it had already been toned down from urging the Ewes to cooperate in the Consultative Commission, to the much less objectionable phrase of urging them to cooperate in seeking a solution. Mr. Khalidy suggested adding the words “of the Ewe problem” at the end of the Urges clause. Mr. Gerig pointed out that the problem involved other peoples than the Ewes. Mr. Khalidy then suggested “of the problem” which we quickly accepted. (We had agreed with the British and French in the morning to accept no changes, but the above two changes were so inconsequential that the British and French could easily and gladly accept them, a fact which we shortly verified with them).
The third point, on the word “seriousness”, was next discussed and Khalidy reluctantly accepted our revision. However, he then said that he did not want to accept the idea of amending even a UK resolution, let alone a French one. He didn’t want the UK to get the credit for-the resolution. Mr. Gerig pointed out that after our amendment was accepted, there would be almost nothing left of the UK original resolution, and that Iraq and the US would certainly get the credit for vastly improving the resolution. Mr. McKay added that procedurally an amendment was better because it was certain to be voted [Page 569] on first, If we put in a separate resolution, the UK proposal might be voted on first. Mr. Khalidy recognized this danger but still opposed the idea of an amendment because the resolution would have been introduced by the UK, and might be reported in the Iraqi press as a UK resolution.
Mr. Khalidy suggested that Sir Alan Burns be approached at once to see whether he would object to a separate resolution instead of an amendment. (We knew that the French wanted the amendment rather than the separate resolution but thought that the text agreed to by Khalidy met all the latest Anglo-French position, so we thought it worth approaching them again on this point). Mr. McKay therefore asked Sir Alan to step out of the Council Chamber for a few minutes. Sir Alan promptly agreed to Khalidy’s desire for a separate resolution and said that if we would wait for him he would consult Laurentie at once. In a few minutes Sir Alan returned with Laurentie’s consent.
It was then agreed that in order to ensure the success of the arrangement, the US Delegation should approach the President and tell him that the French, Iraq, UK and US Delegations all wanted him to put the Iraq-US proposal to the vote first, (President Urena subsequently agreed to this procedure).
Mr. Khalidy concluded by expressing his pleasure that we had been able to reach agreement, but emphasized that this agreement dependedupon there being absolutely no further changes in the text. Mr. Gerig responded that we were in entire agreement with him on this point. Mr. Khalidy also stated that in making his remarks in support of our draft resolution he intended to be quite moderate, and would not go into details on the French elections or other matters. He would emphasize that in his view, however, the two administering authorities were being given one more chance, and the future depended upon their coming up wih a satisfactory solution at the next session of the Trusteeship Council.