Egyptian Request To UNO: British Troop Withdrawal

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 August 1947, Page 8

Egyptian Request To UNO: British Troop Withdrawal

NEW YORK, August 11.

A warning that the situation in Egypt might lead to armed clashes was given by the Prime Minister of Egypt (Nokrashy Pasha) today when he asked the United Nations Security Council to order the immediate evacuation of the British troops from Egypt, including the Suez Canal Zone.

Nokrashy Pasha, said: “So long as the occupation continues, the popular resentment of millions of Egyptians cannot be stilled. Flare-ups cannot bo prevented, the, situation can easily get out of hand, and the peaceful intentions’. of my Government may be thwarted.” Domination Aim Alleged Nokrashy Pasha said he was astonished by a recent speech in the Council by Sir Alexander Cadogah, the British representative, which he described as “an unrestrained ppologia for nineteenth century imperialism.” He added: “I though we had seen the • last manifestation of that spirit when Nazism and Fascism were crushed.”

The real object of the 1936 BritishEgyptian . Treaty, said Nokrashy Pasha, was to enable . Britain to dominate Egypt from the ground and the air. (Sir Alexander Cadogan on August 5 said that Egypt was trying to evade her obligations under the 1936 treaty, which would remain valid and effective until 1956). Britain’s Case

Replying, the British representative (Sir Alexander Cadogan) contended that the British-Egyptian 20year pact was still legally in force, and that the Council should drop Egypt’s charges. In a 10,000-word prepared statement on Britain’s case, Sir Alexander Cadogan declared that the political unity of the Nile Valley—one of the cardinal points of the Egyptian appeal—was a myth. A very considerable part of the Nile basin was in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Belgian Congo. “If we are going to accept this doctrine we must consider whether these nations have any right to remain politically separate from Egypt,” he said. He regretted that in all of Nokrashy Pasha’s speech there was “no word of recognition of what the British Commonwealth and its allies did for Egypt during the Second World War. I can only express my disappointment—to put it at the lowest—that we are now being shown the door with .nothing but reproaches and abuse.”

Work Accomplished The work accomplished by Britain had led to the establishment of Egypt as a prosperous independent State, said Sir Alexander Cadogan. British troops first went to Egypt at the request of. and with the authorisation of the Khedive of Egypt. They had stayed on because the _ British authorities, “inspired by the ideas ot constructive imperialism which it is now the fashion to decry, found before them an immense task which they felt it their duty to perform.” If was clear that the complete removal of the British troops, as agreed on in the new draft British-Egyptian Treaty, was conditional on agreement

on arrangements for possible mutual assistance. The British Government regarded the continuance of mutual defence arrangements to safeguard the Middle East as necessary in present circumstances.