COMMISSION STILL STANDING FOR PARTITION

Grey River Argus, 25 March 1948, Page 5

COMMISSION STILL STANDING FOR PARTITION

(Rec. 9.0). NEW YORK. March 23. Despite the United States decision to abandon Palestine partition, the United Nations Palestine Commission decided to-day to go ahead witli the partition programme on the ground that only the General Assembly can instruct it to stop work. DR EVATT'S VIEWS MELBOURNE, March 23. The Australian Minister of External affairs, Dr. Evatt, who was chairman of the United Nations committee which worked out the partition pian for Palestine, said:— “To throw the Palestine problem into the melting pot again may be very damaging to the authority of the United Nations.” He was commenting on the United States move to shelve the Palestine partition plan in favour of a temporary trusteeship. He added that because of lack of information it was impossible to examine the new plan in detail, but the partition decision was an impartial one reached by more than a two-thirds majority of the United Nations Assembly, and must not be lightly set aside. He recalled that the U.S. had intervened only when Great Britain had requested the Assembly to handle the matter. “If a special Assembly is called,” he concluded, “it is hardly likely to accept any plan which involves the annihilation of the previous decision unless new facts of overwhelming urgency are proved to exist.”