The Soviet Union proposed here Thursday that the U.N. Security Council meet at the foreign ministers level to discuss the convening of an international peace conference on the Middle East.
The proposal was made by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in a letter to Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar. The letter, dated Jan. 19, was circulated here Thursday.
A senior Israeli official said Thursday there was “nothing new” in the Soviet proposal, which Israel rejects as it has done in the past.
Shevardnadze suggested that the 15 members of the Security Council “proceed to consultations” on the Soviet proposal.
The Soviet official contended that there is growing support for an international conference as the only realistic way to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, in view of the “popular uprising” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
He urged that the Security Council “immediately be involved in the practical process of setting up and putting in motion the mechanism of the international conference on the Middle East, which should be designed to find, on the basis of multilateral efforts, a reasonable balance among the interests of all the parties and to ensure lasting peace and security in the region.”
Shevardnadze proposed that initial consultations be held by the five permanent members of the council: the United States, Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China, England and France. “Conclusions and recommendations arrived at during such meetings could be considered at a formal meeting of the council,” he said.
The Soviet Union has been supporting the idea of an international conference on the Mideast for several years. Israel and the United States have opposed the idea.
But in the last year, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has been calling for such a conference, providing that the Soviet Union reestablishes diplomatic ties with Israel, which Moscow severed in the course of the 1967 Six-Day War.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel opposes an international conference and the issue has become a major point of disagreement between Peres’ Labor and Shamir’s Likud blocs.
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