B’nai B’rith Welcomes Renewed U.s.-ussr Talks As a Way to Help Soviet Jewry, Mideast Peace Process

The International Council of B’nai B’rith welcomed the renewed talks between the United States and the Soviet Union which it said could help improve the tragic condition of Soviet Jewry and help move forward the peace process in the Middle East.

B’nai B’rith president Gerald Kraft invited the Soviet government to negotiate with B’nai B’rith delegates to find a solution to the human rights problem posed by its treatment of its Jewish community.

Kraft told a news conference here that B’nai B’rith delegates would like to meet “at the highest possible level” with Soviet representatives. He said this is a good time for the Soviet Union “to demonstrate its intentions to the West by easing its restrictions on Soviet Jewry.”

He rapped the Kremlin’s policies for not only preventing the Jews who want to leave from doing so but also for “making it ever more difficult to survive as Jews.”

The International Council held its three-day annual meeting last week in Paris with the participation of some 50 delegates from over a dozen countries. A B’nai B’rith delegation met with the Elysee Palace Secretary General, Jean-Louis Bianco, to share with him some of its worries and preoccupations.

Kraft told the news conference that the International Council believed that Soviet-American contacts on the Middle East would help the peace progress though peace can be achieved “only through direct talks” between the belligerents.

He paid tribute to France’s President Francois Mitterrand for improving Franco-Israeli relations and called on other West European nations to follow France’s lead and urged them to press the Arabs to initiate “a true peace process” with Israel.

Most of the participants in the three-day meeting are slated to leave this week for a study tour of Israel. Before arriving here, Kraft himself met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.