Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger discussed the Middle East with Soviet leaders in Moscow for 3 1/2 hours today, it was reported here. His meeting was with Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Kissinger was accompanied by Alfred Atherton, Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern affairs. Atherton did not participate in yesterday’s talks between Kissinger and the Kremlin leaders which dealt with disarmament problems, the report said.
Kissinger reportedly assured the Russians that the U.S. is not trying to undercut the Soviet position in the Middle East by its diplomatic initiatives to effect disengagement between Israel and its neighbors. He reportedly told Brezhnev that the U.S. regards the Soviet role as indispensable to achieve a Middle East peace. The Russians were said to be irked by what they consider Washington’s concentration on disengagement rather than on achieving an overall settlement predicated on Israeli withdrawal from Arab territory.
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