The Foreign Ministry announced today that Israel will not renew its 14-year-old trade pact with Poland which expires next October 1 and has so informed the Polish Government through the Dutch Embassy in Warsaw, which is handling Israeli affairs in that country. Poland severed diplomatic relations with Israel following the June 1967, Arab-Israeli war According to a Foreign Ministry spokesman, trade between the two countries has been at a standstill since the rupture, but Poland owes Israel more than $2.5 million within the framework of their agreement.
The termination of the trade agreement will end the agreement on payments as well, the Ministry spokesman said. The trade pact was signed in 1954 and renewed itself automatically unless intention to terminate it was announced by either party three months prior to the renewal date. Apart from the break in diplomatic ties, Israel’s relations with Poland have deteriorated markedly during the past six months owing to the intensive anti-Jewish campaign instituted by the Warsaw regime and the mass purge of Jews from high posts in the Polish Government and Communist Party apparatus on changes of “Zionist” sympathies. In contrast to Poland, Israel continues to maintain formal trade relations with other Eastern European countries that broke diplomatic ties after the Six-Day War. Some of these have lately shown interest in widening their trade with Israel. Israel has both trade and diplomatic relations with Rumania.
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