The World - News from Dec. 31, 1985

The Soviet Union denounced Western reports that it will allow a significant rise in the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, calling the reports “provocative concoctions” aimed at undermining Soviet Mideast policy. News reports in the West have said that Moscow may restore diplomatic ties with Israel, ruptured since the Six-Day War of 1967, and let thousands of Jews emigrate in a bid to boost the Kremlin’s Mideast influence. But the official news agency Tass, accusing the “imperialist mass media” of circulating “ill-intentioned rumors,” said: “It goes without saying that these fabrications are totally groundless.”