§ 1. Mr. Longdenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the talks about the condition of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery on Mount Scopus, to which he referred in his reply to the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire on 31st May last, have culminated in a mutually agreeable solution; and if he will make a statement.
§ The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. George Thomson)The discussions to which my hon. Friend referred in his reply to the hon. Gentleman on 31st May are still continuing. Since then I have visited the cemetery and discussed the problem with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation in Jerusalem. It would be unhelpful at this stage, on a matter which I know the hon. Member has deeply at heart, if I were to say more than that I still hope to find a solution acceptable to all parties.
§ Mr. LongdenI thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply, but this matter has been going on for a very long time. Under the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan, did not both Governments agree to free access to 880 Mount Scopus? Which of these two Governments is frustrating the carrying out of this duty that we owe to Commonwealth troops who fell in he First World War?
§ Mr. ThomsonThe hon. Gentleman has been very patient and I appreciate his sense of the time this has taken. But a solution must command the agreement of both Jordan and Israel. I have tried to carry it forward by seeing things for myself on the spot. I should like to tell the hon. Gentleman, and other hon. Members who are interested, that, despite the long period of neglect of the cemetery, I found that the great majority of the headstones are in a good state of Considered; to be read the Third time preservation and that the cemetery as a whole still retains a simple and moving dignity.