Israel has established full diplomatic relations with Armenia and is expected to announce shortly the resumption of diplomatic ties with Nigeria, the most populous black African state.
Israel’s ambassador to Moscow, Arye Levin, will serve as emissary to Armenia, one of the 15 former republics of the now-defunct Soviet Union.
Levin presented his credentials April 23 to the Armenian foreign minister in Yerevan, the capital of the republic, and also met with the president.
The ceremony was broadcast and prominently featured in the local news media.
Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy will fly to the Nigerian capital of Lagos next week to participate personally in restoring the ties broken by Nigeria in a gesture of solidarity with Egypt after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Nigeria, with an area of nearly 400,000 square miles and a population exceeding 115 million, is one of the leading nations of Africa.
Full diplomatic relations with another African nation, Angola, were established April 16 by the two countries’ envoys to the United Nations.
In another diplomatic development, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens began an official visit Sunday to Finland and to the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which declared their independence from the Soviet Union last year.
Arens will participate in Holocaust Memorial Day events in Riga, the Latvian capital.
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.
