Israel-german Negotiations to Start in Two Weeks, Sharett Says

The Israeli-German reparations negotiations will start in a “couple of weeks,” Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett declared here today following his arrival from London where he represented his government at the funeral of the late King George VI. He told newsmen that there has been no contact with Germany and that the negotiations themselves will be the first contact between the two states.

The Foreign Minister emphasized that the conferences in Paris last week between Israeli representatives and the praesidium of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany had been “fruitful.” Denying a report that Dr. Nahum Goldmann, head of the praesidium, would also head the Israeli delegation to the talks with Germany, Mr. Sharett declared that the members of the Israeli delegation would all be Israeli citizens. He also said that the negotiations might take place in Brussels, but that the matter had not yet been set.

Dr. George Josephthal, absorption director of the Jewish Agency, who returned from Paris where he attended the talks of the Israelis and the praesidium of the Conference on Jewish Claims, said that the Jewish organizations from outside Israel would from their own separate delegation for the purpose of conducting separate negotiations with the Germans.

Minister Sharett told the reporters at the airfield that during a half-hour meeting with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden a variety of mutually interesting problems had been discussed, and that no developments on the proposed Middle East command could be expected until after the forthcoming meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Lisbon. He refused to speculate on Israel’s future role in relation to the Middle East command because of the uncertainties of the Anglo-Egyptian talks on which the command will be based.