Speech made by Mr. El-Khouri, Representative of Syria in the Security Council Meeting held on 20th January 1948 on Draft Resolution

20011948 Speech made by Mr. El-Khouri, Representative of Syria in the Security Council Meeting held on 20th January 1948 on Draft Resolution

It is a matter of appreciation of the goodwill exhibited by both parties in an attempt to reach a peaceful and amicable solution to the dispute between them. They have thereby confirmed our expectations that they would prove willing to avoid any further aggravation of the present situation and to find a solution by themselves. Both parties regret that they were led to bring their case before the Security Council; they would have prefer­red to have the question solved between themselves, without being obliged to appear in pu6lic in this manner. They have now proved that point, and all of us are very pleased with the result which has been brought about under the auspices of the President and with his help. We appreciate what has been done, and we congratulate both parties.

All of this gives me the very strong hope that future developments in this case will show, as has been indicated by the developments of the last two days during which this resolu­tion was prepared, that the situation can be clarified between the parties and that there will be no great difficulty in esta­blishing a commission for the purpose of reaching agreement between them.

I find that the resolution is a good one. However, there are certain vague and ambiguous points contained in it. Since the meetings between the two parties are to continue, I presume that clarification will be given to those points in the resolution which are still unclear, especially as to the directions which it is expected that the Security Council will give.

The question of the directions to be given by the Security Council is not very clear in the resolution. Clause C of the resolution speaks of the "...directions, if any, of the Security

Council..." In other words, the commission would not delay the start of its work in order to await instructions or directions. If such instructions or directions were to be given, they would

1. complied with.          

In the same way, Clause B states that the commission shall act "in accordance with the directions it may receive "from the Security Council. It is not absolutely necessary, then, that the Security Council give directions. The commission would start its work in accordance with the terms of reference contained in the resolution: in the first place, "to investigate the facts pur­suant to Article 34 of the Charter". In other words, any fact or situation likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security would be investigated. There is no difficulty, then, in interpreting that phase of the matter.

There are other points in the resolution which will be clarified by the subsequent meetings to be held between the parties and the President of the Security Council. For this reason, I think it is unnecessary to prolong discussion of this resolution. After it is adopted, additional matters which require clarification will be taken care of at subsequent meetings.

(SCOR, 3rd Year, Mtg. no. 230, pp. 136-137)