Israel Links Soviet Peace Role to Diplomatic Ties

Prime Minister Shimon Peres said today that Israel will accept Soviet participation in peace talks on the Middle East if the Kremlin renews full diplomatic ties.

In his first public comment on Soviet-Israeli talks to be held this month in Helsinki, Peres also said his country will seek to establish trade and cultural ties with the Kremlin.

Peres said, “The Russians want to take part in an international conference when and if it begins between ourselves and the Arabs. We do not object to their participation in the opening stages, on condition that they set up full diplomatic relations and with the hope that they will stop their one-sided stand in the Middle East.”

The Palestinians, moderate Arab states and the Soviets have called for an international conference to negotiate peace in the Middle East. Israel, backed by the United States, wants direct talks, which it says could be launched under international auspices.

Peres, speaking to high school students in northern Israel, said he hopes the Soviet-Israeli talks will help break the Jewish state’s isolation in the world and increase stability in the Middle East.

The prime minister said Israel faces two major problems in dealing with the Soviet Union--”that of the condition of Russian Jewry, and the fact that (the Soviet Union) is the biggest supplier of arms to the Arab rejectionist states, Syria and Libya.”

Israeli newspapers today reported that Peres told a closed-door meeting of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel agreed to meet the Soviets on two conditions--that the meeting be made public and that the talks not be limited to the question of Soviet property in Israel.

Peres was quoted as saying that Moscow had not turned down Israel’s terms.