SPEECH BY NASSER Egypt ‘Ready And Able To Strike'

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32049, 25 July 1969, Page 13

SPEECH BY NASSER Egypt ‘Ready And Able To Strike '

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

CAIRO, July 24.

Egyptian leaders today will review the situation on the battlefront, after President Nasser’s statement yesterday that his Army was now ready and able to strike back at Israel on a large scale. In a hard-hitting speech to the Arab Socialist Union last night on the seventeenth anniversary of the 1952 revolution, the 51-year-old President pledged that Egypt would battle for every inch of Arab territory lost to the Israelis in the 1967 war.

He told Egyptians to be ready for a long struggle. “The six-day war can never be repeated.”

Today the War Minister (General Mohamed Fawzy) reports to a closed session on the latest situation along the Suez Canal, scene of the fiercest fighting last weekend since June, 1967. In his speech President Nasser praised the performance of the Egyptian Army

and Air Force in the encoun- ! ters.

They had improved immeasurably since last year, he said.

“We are now beginning the stage of liberation,” he said. Egypt did not believe that the cease-fire along the canal could be dissociated from Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. Egypt would never surrender to Israel. President Nasser declared: “This nation has decided to live honourably." The President suggested an Arab gathering at the highest lgvel, adding that since the 1967 Khartoum summit many things had changed to make such a meeting necessary. For the co-ordination of unified action, the commando forces which represent the Palestinian people should join in talks, the President said. The President made it quite clear that despite Israeli retaliatory strikes and appeals from the United Nations Egypt did not propose any slackening of the military effort. “The six-day war is still on,” he said. “It will become a two-year, three-year and four-year war.”

Egyptians must be ready to suffer attacks on the home front, President Nasser said. The Israelis might attack bridges and similar installations. There was a bitter struggle ahead, “but if the enemy strikes at civilians we will do the same,” he said. Five committees of the Congress began closed meetings today on different aspects of national affairs. Central theme of the three-day congress is “mobilisation" of all Egypt’s potentials. Among agenda items is the proposal made by the President last night to reduce land ownership further from a maximum of 100 feddans (roughly acres) to 50 feddans per head. He suggested that the maximum landholding a family should be 100 feddans.