UN General Assembly
1956

123. As I have just said, these efforts did not meet with complete success, but at least we had the satisfaction of having prevented an armed conflict. Our satisfaction appeared well-founded, for when the Governments of France and of the United Kingdom decided to refer the Suez question to the Security Council we thought with good reason that they were expressing their willingness to accept the decision of the Council. 124. At the end of last October, when we were hoping for an equitable solution of the Suez problem on the basis of an agreement reached in the Security Council, and when we thought that the idea of resorting to force had been definitively abandoned, we were suddenly confronted by Israel’s aggression against Egypt, followed by a violation of Egypt’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by the military forces of France and the United Kingdom.