Peres, Soviet Discuss Steps for Reviving Official Ties

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres met today with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and said they discussed the steps necessary for the normalization of relations.

Peres said there would be further contacts but did not say at what level.

Moscow broke diplomatic relations with Israel after the 1967 Middle East War.

Today’s meeting, which lasted about an hour, took place in a room off the Security Council chamber shortly after they had listened to President Reagan address the General Assembly.

Emerging from the meeting, the Israeli leader told reporters, “We have agreed that both Soviet Russia and Israel will contemplate the proposals and the approaches suggested by the other side. We shall react to it.

“And both sides try to see what are the necessary steps in order to normalize the relations between Soviet Russia and Israel,” Peres added.

Asked whether there was a chance of restoring relations, Peres replied, “I didn’t say so. I said we started to discuss what are the steps necessary for normalization between the Soviet Union and the state of Israel.”

Shevardnadze, who met with Peres briefly at a U.N. reception last year in New York, left today’s meeting separately.

He told reporters, “We have discussed very serious matters in a normal atmosphere, such as questions related to bilateral relations, questions related to the Middle East and some overall problems of international relations.”

The last high-level working meeting between representatives of Israel and the Soviet Union took place during the 1984 U.N. General Assembly, when Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir conferred with his then Soviet counterpart, Andrei A. Gromyko, at the Soviet U.N. mission.