Israeli observers expressed "limited satisfaction" today over Soviet Premier Alexsei Kosygin’s comments on the Middle East situation in his address yesterday to the Egyptian national assembly in Cairo. The Soviet Premier endorsed Egypt’s stand on the Yemen war and expressed "sympathy for the struggle to regain the legal rights of Palestine refugees." The visiting Premier’s only other reference to the Middle East was a warning about the dangers of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
The Israeli observers agreed that the Soviet Premier avoided an extremist and-Israel position. They said his references to "a just settlement" of the Arab refugee dispute and his expressed hope that they would "regain their legal rights" were routine Soviet declarations which were this time somewhat vague and abstract. Such statements, they noted, have been made by the Soviets for a long time.
The observers expressed the belief that Premier Kosygin had turned down Egyptian efforts to induce him to make stronger anti-Israel statements. They stressed that the Kosygin address in Cairo was the first open Soviet appeal in an Arab country urging denuclearization of the Middle East and viewed the appeal as directed mainly to the Arab states.
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