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Canada-arab Relations Seen Improving

March 31, 1980
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— Sheikh Ahmed Yamani, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, who is in Canada for an international conference in Toronto on celluloses, met with More Lalonde, the new Liberal Party’s energy minister, in Ottawa last Thursday for two hours to discuss energy and international trade. Yamani came to Ottawa at a special request by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau who invited him to be his guest at a special performance of the ballet at the National Art Center. After meeting with Yamni, Lalonde told reporters that relations with Arab countries, which were disrupted by the previous Conservative Party government’s plans to move the Canadian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, are now improving since these plans did not materialize. “I don’t think everything is completely clarified as yet with every Arab country, but I hope that the policies of the new Canadian government will meet concerns that were expressed in the past,” Lalonde said. Relations between Canada and Arab countries worsened last summer because of Prime Minister Joe Clark’s announcement that he might move Canada’s embassy.

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