French President Georges Pompidou and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev discussed the situation in the Middle East during two days of talks which ended today, but they saw no solution to the problem, a Foreign Ministry official said.
The official said the two leaders discussed the Middle East as an aspect of the world political and military framework in the same way that they discussed Vietnam, Cambodia and Latin America. No details on what the two leaders said to each other about the Middle East were disclosed by the Foreign Ministry.
The Foreign Ministry official said Pompidou did not discuss with Brezhnev the harassment of Soviet Jews or its refusal to issue visas to those who wish to emigrate to Israel because France views the matter as an internal national problem and not a topic for a summit conference.
DEMONSTRATIONS
Militants of the “Jewish Student Front” (Betar) burned ten Soviet flags here today in front of the Soviet tourist agency “Intourist” and the French Communist Party headquarters in protest against the visit of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to Paris. The demonstrators dispersed before the arrival of police.
A police-banned demonstration organized by the Defense Committee for Soviet Jews took place here yesterday without incident. Several hundred young people carried posters reading “Free Soviet Jews” and “Brezhnev in Rambouillet, Soviet Jews in Prison.” The reference was to the castle outside Paris where Brezhnev is staying.
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