UN RESOLUTION 338

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What was UN Security Council Resolution 338?

In the later stages of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, after Israel repulsed the Syrian attack on the Golan Heights and established a bridgehead on the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal, international efforts to stop the fighting were intensified. US Secretary of State Kissinger flew to Moscow on October 20, 1973 and, together with the Soviet government, the US proposed a cease-fire resolution in the UN Security Council. The Council met on October 21 at the urgent request of both the US and the USSR, and by 14 votes to none, adopted the resolution on October 22, 1973.

Resolution 338 is quite short and calls for:

• ...all parties to the fighting to cease all firing and terminate all military activity immediately...
  
  
• ...all parties concerned to start immediately after the cease-fire the implementation of Security Council Resolution 242 in all of its parts.
  
  
• ...immediately and concurrently with the cease-fire, negotiations start between the parties concerned "aimed at establishing a just and durable peace in the Middle East".

A cease-fire was arranged with the efforts of Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy, but the peace negotiations demanded by Resolution 338 would not begin for almost another decade.

Sources and additional reading on this topic:

• U.N. Security Council Resolution 338
• The Yom Kippur War