Israeli officials have welcomed Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh’s announcement that he will visit Israel next month on a tour of the Middle East, though they said they had not been informed officially of his plans.
The Soviet foreign minister made the announcement in Kislovodsk, the Caucasus resort town where he met Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.
Bessmertnykh would be the highest-ranking Soviet official ever to visit the Jewish state. It is hoped here that his visit will herald the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations between the two countries, which Moscow severed in 1967.
Bessmertnykh indicated Thursday that the Soviet Union was ready to co-sponsor a Middle East peace conference with the United States.
While Israel has agreed to U.S.-Soviet sponsorship of a regional conference, it has insisted the Soviets restore full diplomatic ties beforehand.
Asked about that possibility, the foreign minister said it depended on progress toward a Middle East peace settlement.
The Soviet announcement may have compensated in some degree for the fading hopes for Baker’s peace mission, as the secretary of state returned to Jerusalem late Thursday for another round of talks with Israeli leaders Friday.
U.S. URGED NOT TO GIVE UP
Baker made no statement when he landed Thursday evening at Ben-Gurion Airport. He was met by Foreign Minister David Levy and Zalman Shoval, Israel’s ambassador to Washington.
The secretary, who had a long session with Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus on Wednesday, has all but acknowledged his failure to bridge the gap between the Arab states and Israel over how to advance the peace process.
But Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was said to have written a letter this week to President Bush, urging the United States to continue its diplomatic efforts, despite the difficulties.
That theme was picked up Thursday by one of Shamir’s chief aides, Yosef Ben-Aharon, who is director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office.
In an Israel Radio interview, Ben-Aharon urged Baker to “persist” in his peace mission.
He said the Israeli government was doing its best to take into account Arab sensitivities with respect to the proposed peace conference and Palestinian representation, which has been one of the main stumbling blocks.
But Ben-Aharon cautioned that Israel could not agree to Arab insistence that an international framework be substituted for direct bilateral talks, nor would it accept any role for the Palestine Liberation Organization, which it considers to be, by its very nature, the antithesis of peace.
Ben-Aharon sidestepped the controversial issue of accepting East Jerusalem Arabs as members of the Palestinian delegation.
Baker will take time out Friday for another meeting, his fourth in six weeks, with local Palestinian leaders.
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.
