The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 245
229 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN Question : Without duplicating anything which is covered in your terminal speech as out-going President of the General Assembly, are there any comments you would like to make on the General Assembly as you saw it, the operation of groups within it, the operation of people within it, on the kinds of issues which you had to handle during the 17th Session ? Zafrulla : I think my own experience was somewhat exceptional in the sense, as became very evident during the last meeting, that there was a great deal more cooperation and spirit of give and take and friendliness, among all the sections than I had experienced before. I think it was the result, the culmination, of the process that had been going on. It did not start in that session; I think it had been in operation during two or three sessions, everybody had begun to feel that very difficult questions were coming up, and that it would be of great help to discuss them between the groups behind the scenes. That process had already started but it became much more manifest in the hall itself, on the floor during the Seventeenth Session. Therefore, my only comment is, again, one of gratitude to all my colleagues that they enabled me, as their representative, to give effect to what they themselves were very willing and anxious to do. Question : After you ceased to be President of the General Assembly you were, as I think I remember, invited to go to numerous states throughout the world. Is that right ? Zafrulla : I had received several invitations during the Session and some of them were repeats of invitations that I had received earlier. For instance, the North African States; each of them had on several occasions asked me to go and visit them and I have now been able to do so. Then, some others I added myself if I was going to a particular region. I was invited by Foreign Minister Gromyko to visit the USSR. I pointed out to Ambassador Zorin, who delivered the actual invitation on behalf of Foreign Minister Gromyko, that we were then in the fall and running into the winter and that was not the time that one could conveniently make a trip to the USSR and if one did, one would not be able to see very much. He smiled and said, "Oh, no, but in the spring or in the summer. " That is how it came about. So, the two major journeys of that kind that I made, one in January and the early part of February to 11 or 12 - of the Eastern and North African states, and then later, in the middle of the Special Session, as it