U.S. Offers 5-Day Extension to Soviets Ordered to Depart

The Administration, in a post-summit “gesture of good will,” has granted the Soviet Union a five-day extension until Sunday for five of 25 members of its U.N. mission who were ordered expelled, the State Department said today.

Department spokesman Peter Martinez said the Administration informed Moscow that a Sept. 17 order that 25 Soviet U.N. mission diplomats leave the United States by today still stands.

The Soviets replied that they would comply but asked for the extension so that the only five of the 25 diplomats still in the United States could catch the next scheduled Aeroflot flight from New York to Moscow on Sunday, Martinez said.

The 25 diplomats have been described by Administration officials as spies. The United States has ordered the departure of 105 U.N.-based Soviet diplomats by April 1, 1988, contending that the Soviet U.N. mission is excessively large and engages in spy activities.