55 years ago/June 22, 1967

On the fifth emergency special session of the UN General Assembly Maurice Couve de Murville, French Minister of Foreign Affairs had a short speech. He repeated practically what France had been saying about being neutral in the conflict. He added, they thought the main problem was only the shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba, and the war made it more complicated. According to the French viewpoint, the meeting in the General Assembly was important, but the decision was made by the Security Council. The French diplomat talked about the refugee question as a very important part of the situation. He mentioned a few real problems, for example, that the UK and the US didn’t have diplomatic relations with Arab countries, while the Soviet Union didn’t have diplomatic relations with Israel; or that how possible it was that the Arab countries would be keen to negotiate with Israel after this defeat, while they didn’t want to do it before. He mentioned the Vietnam War a few times and repeated De Gaulle’s thought that any solution could be expected in the Middle East after the end of the Vietnam War.