Nicaragua will restore diplomatic ties with Israel, broken by the former Sandinista government in protest against Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Foreign Ministry reported Sunday.
It said an understanding to that effect was given by Nicaragua’s newly elected president, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, in a conversation with a senior Israeli diplomat, David Turgeman, who represented Israel at her inauguration in Managua last week.
In 1983, there were U.S. government reports on tics between the Sandinistas, who were ousted in the recent election, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The reports indicated the PLO supplied training and military materiel to the Sandinistas.
Virtually the entire Jewish community fled Nicaragua at the time the Sandinistas came to power.
Israel was a reported “second country” in the provision of U.S. arms to the Contra rebels in the complex Iran-Contra scandal.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
