Shimon Peres, Israel’s former Deputy Minister of Defense, warned here today of the impending establishment of a new pro-Soviet bloc in the Middle East, as a “new phase in the cold war.”
As a result of the recent visit of Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin to Cairo, and the visit to Moscow by Syria’s Prime Minister Zayyen, he said, the new Soviet-Arab relationships are “bound to bring about a build-up of arms and tension in the Middle East in the near future.”
On the other hand, he declared, there seemed little prospect at present of extending the 1950 Tripartite Declaration, guaranteeing the territorial integrity of all states in the Middle East, into a four-power move that would include the USSR as one of the guarantors. The 1950 Declaration had been issued by the United States, Britain and France, and is still in effect.
Mr. Peres, now general secretary of Israel’s latest political party, Rafi, founded by former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, held a news conference here today under the auspices of the Zionist Organization of America. Jacques Torczyner, ZOA president, explained that, while the ZOA “is not identified with any political party in Israel,” Mr. Peres was invited as part of a ZOA program to acquaint American Zionists “with the varied political trends in the Jewish State.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
