Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev today accused President Nasser of the United Arab Republic of stirring up trouble in the Near East. Commenting on Nasser’s activities in Iraq, Khrushchev said “the Soviet Union is not indifferent to the situation.”
The Communist leader told a party in Moscow, celebrating a new Iraqi-Soviet technical agreement, that the Soviet Union is concerned because Nasser’s activities are in “a region not far from its frontiers.”
“We are all pained by President Nasser’s recent speech in Damascus,” he stated. He added that “when the President of the UAR talks about Communism and Communists, he arms himself with the language of the imperialists.”
Today’s outburst by the Communist leader indicated the widest break in Soviet UAR rapport since the arms accord of 1955. However, Khrushchev said, Russian diplomatic relations with the UAR would continue “as heretofore.”
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