Peres OKs Soviet Peace Role if Ties Are Renewed

Israel would accept Soviet participation in Middle East peace talks if the Kremlin renews diplomatic ties with Israel that were broken in 1967, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday.

He added, however, that Israel will not forget its obligation to Soviet Jews who have been refused permission to emigrate.

In his first public comments since announcements were made here and in Moscow that the two nations will hold precedent-setting talks in Helsinki later this month, Peres told an Israel radio interviewer that while “we’re not getting overly excited,” he was nevertheless pleased by the latest developments.

“We want cultural ties, economic ties, commercial ties (with the Soviet Union),” he said in the interview, conducted during a tour Peres made of northern Israel. “The Russians also want to participate in an international conference, which will open if the negotiations between us and the Arabs get under way.

‘One-Sided Stands’

“We do not oppose their participating in the opening, on the condition that they establish full diplomatic relations with us, and with the hope that they will stop taking one-sided stands in the Middle East,” the Israeli leader said.

Speculation about a possible resumption of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Soviet Union was fueled by Israel’s announcement last week that delegations from the two countries would meet at Moscow’s initiative to discuss consular issues.

On Monday, Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov confirmed the planned talks, which will be the first between official delegations representing the two countries since Moscow broke relations with Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War. According to Israeli reports, the talks will open the week beginning Aug. 17 in Helsinki, with a follow-up round proposed later in Tel Aviv.

Gerasimov said that the delegations will discuss a number of nonpolitical issues, including Soviet property interests here, and he denied that the move foreshadows any early resumption of full diplomatic ties.

Moscow has insisted that Israel agree to an international Middle East peace conference, including representation from the Palestine Liberation Organization, before ties can be restored. Israel prefers direct negotiations with its Arab neighbors, but Peres has said such talks could be launched under international auspices.

Church Property

Israeli sources put the estimated value of Russian Orthodox Church property in Israel and the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River at more than $100 million, including choice tracts in Jerusalem and at least six other localities. The properties in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are administered by the anti-Communist “White” Russian church in exile, while those inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders are administered by the pro-Soviet Moscow patriarchate.

Nevertheless, many analysts here consider the property issue to be a convenient “cover” for what the Kremlin hopes will be a new channel for regular contact with Israel at a time of renewed activity in the Mideast peace process.

Peres’ promise to keep the question of Soviet Jews who want to emigrate in the forefront of any talks with the Kremlin underlined the political sensitivity of that issue here. About 165,000 Russian Jews now live in Israel, and an estimated 400,000 more in the Soviet Union have indicated a desire to come here.

Moshe Arens, a minister without portfolio representing the rightist Likud Bloc in Israel’s coalition Cabinet, criticized Peres on Tuesday for not having brought the Soviet request for consular meetings to the Cabinet for discussion. He said that Israel “should make that first step contingent on the freeing of some of the prisoners of Zion that have been languishing in Soviet prison camps for so many years.”

However, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the head of Likud, told Israel radio that “it’s too early” to set preconditions for the talks. “At this stage, we’ll see what they propose, what they say and in terms of that we’ll prepare our positions.”

‘Unaware of Intentions’

Shamir said that it is still unclear whether Moscow hopes to renew relations, “so there’s no point now to present conditions when we are unaware of their intentions.”

Meanwhile, Soviet Jewish groups here mobilized their forces to demand that the Israeli government link free emigration with any gesture toward Moscow.

“We don’t believe in (Moscow’s) good will,” Yuri Stern, spokesman for Jerusalem’s Soviet Jewry Information Center, said in an interview. “The Soviet Jewry issue should not just be ‘on’ the agenda; it should be the agenda” at any Israeli-Soviet talks, he said.