298. Telegram From the Mission at the United Nations to the Department of State1

813. Verbatim text. Re Suez. As Secretary suggested, I informed Hammarskjold of our present plans for reporting to SC on Suez discussions. Hammarskjold had just received from Loutfi a personal message from Fawzi with the Egyptian comments on SYG’s suggestions for amendments to Egyptian Declaration. Text Egyptian comments follows:

  • “1. We believe that the Declaration would constitute an instrument of international character and would be registerable with the Secretariat. Mention of Article 102 will not be necessary.
  • “2. Relating to the last sentence of 2 (B) of your first message of 16 inst.,2 we prefer that it be mentioned instead that the Secretary General effected the registration of the Declaration recognizing and confirming it as an international instrument.
  • “3. The Government of Egypt are now ready to make reference in the covering letter to the Security Council Resolution of 13 October 1956 (in fulfillment of their participation in the Constantinople Convention of 1888, noting their understanding of the Security Council Resolution of 13 October 1956 and in line with their statements relating to it before the Council).
  • “4. We do not consider it necessary that the General Assembly should take note of the Declaration and the exchange of letters and we think it inadvisable to open the door for a damaging and risky debate in this respect.
  • “5. The settlement of disputes or disagreements relating to the Declaration as well as to the Convention is covered in 3 (A) of our draft, at the same time we intend to improve and rewrite 3 (B) to read as follows: ‘as regards differences arising between the parties to the Constantinople Convention of 1888 in respect of the interpretation or the applicability of its provisions and which have not been otherwise resolved, the Government of Egypt will take the necessary steps in order to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in conformity with the provisions of Article 36 of its statute.’ Furthermore paragraph 8 of our draft deals with the settlement of complaints relating to the Canal Code. The ground in relation to this matter seems, therefore, to be covered fairly well.
  • “6. On the question of co-operation we are ready to add to paragraph 5: ‘to that end the government of Egypt will welcome and encourage co-operation between the Suez Canal Authority and the representatives of shipping and trade.’
  • “7. Without claiming perfection for the Declaration in whatever form it will be, we do not deem it advisable that any suggestion of its being an interim document be put out.
  • “8. The McCloy paper3 contains several useful and constructive ideas which have been drawn upon as far as possible at the present stage and will be examined and explored further in the future for some elaborations or set ups that might be required.”

Re registration, Hammarskjold intends to inform Fawzi that in view of manner Egyptians handling registration question, his response to Egyptians’ formal request for registration will be along following lines: (Fawzi said Egypt had dropped ref to Art 102 on basis US comments.)

“I understand that the government of Egypt consider that the Declaration constitutes an engagement of an international character coming within the scope of Article 102 of the Charter, therefore, registration has been effected in accordance with Article 1 of the regulations to give effect to that article.”

Hammarskjold said that he also believed he should say to Fawzi in his reply that without wishing to hold things up he regrets Egyptian Government has not provided for arbitration under the Declaration or with respect to cooperation with the users to add words such as “representatives as may be appropriately designated”.

Hammarskjold said that since his views on these points had been treated fully previously, he did not feel that referring to them again in this way would provide Egyptians with opportunity to delay matters and might induce Egyptians to make some last minute improvements.

If Department thinks Hammarskjold’s suggestions along above lines worth further effort at this stage, it may wish suggest that Hare support SYG in appropriate way.

Wadsworth
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 974.7301/4–2257. Confidential; Niact. Received at 7:55 p.m.
  2. Document 288.
  3. See footnotes 48, Document 262.