On 17 February 1969, Geoffrey George Arthur, British Ambassador to Kuwait, sends a telegram to United Kingdom main diplomatic missions in the Middle East, in Western Europe and in the United States regarding the anxiety caused in the Arab world by the motives of the recent Western European Union meeting on the Middle East held in London on 14 February. The British authorities reassure the United Arab Republic Ambassador that there was nothing special about the meeting except for the French refusal to attend it.