The Israel Foreign Ministry today denounced the expulsion by the Soviet Union of an Israel Embassy official as “a case of flagrant provocation by the secret police.”
The statement was issued as a comment on the announcement by Tass, the Soviet news agency, on the reasons for the expulsion of Yaacov Sharett, the First Secretary of the Israel Embassy in Moscow.
The Foreign Ministry described the Tass statement as “a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end. Neither this Israeli diplomat nor any other Israeli diplomat has ever engaged in espionage or dissemination of anti-Soviet material in the Soviet Union.
“This is a case of flagrant provocation by the secret police,” the Foreign Ministry asserted. The statement added, that “the propaganda aims” of the Tass report “are obvious, and it is unlikely to deceive anyone.”
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