The special session of the United Nations ?ssembly to consider the Palestine question will probably open the last week in April ?r the first week in May, U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie indicated today.
Mr. Lie told a press conference that 14 nations have already formally approved the calling of a special session and he anticipated that he will have received af?irmative replies from the necessary 28 of the 55 member nations by next Monday or ?uesday, April 14 or 15. Under U.N. rules, the Assembly meeting will convone 15 days after majority approval has been secured.
The Secretary-General said that the meeting would be held in the Assembly ?hamber at Flushing Meadows. He reiterated that the scope of the session would be determined by the delegates themselves. In her note requesting the special meeting, ?ritain suggested that it confine itself to establishing a fact-finding commission which would report to the next scheduled meeting of the Assembly in September.
Representatives of the Jewish Agency have conferred with him, Mr. Lie disclosed, but only on procedural matters relating to the ways and means of presenting the Zionist case to the Assembly or whatever commission is set up.
He refused to comment on the recent statement by a member of the British delegation that Britain would not consider herself bound by any decision takea by the Assembly, but pointed out that under the U.N. Charter the Assembly has the power only to recommend a course of action to a member nation.
The fourteen nations which have already signified their approval of the special session are: Cuba, France, China, United States, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, Greece, New Zealand, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Panama and Paraguay.
Questioned about the present status of the International Refugee Organization, Mr. Lie said that it has made no further progress since the Preparatory Commission met in Genva several weeks ago.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
