Shulamit Shamir, wife of the Foreign Minister and Likud leader, returned from a visit to her native Bulgaria this week full of praise for her Jewish community hosts and government officials involved in her visit.
She told reporters she had spent her last evening at dinner in the home of the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, sitting by the fire and discussing many things, which was romantic, but leaving the prospect of diplomatic relations to be discussed by the Israeli Foreign Minister.
Shamir’s visit grew out of a conversation between Shamir and his Bulgarian counterpart at the UN last year. It was widely interpreted as a gesture by the East European country toward Israel.
Shamir was taken to see the house where she was born and another where she grew up. The government put a plane at her disposal for trips farther a field. “Everything was done to make my stay pleasant,” she said.
Meanwhile, repair work is going ahead at the former Israeli Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, which is to soon become the new Israeli Consulate. The two countries have agreed to the reestablishment of consular ties.
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