Shamir Asks Shultz to Shut Down PLO Offices in U.S., Israel Radio Reports

Israeli Prime Minister-designate Yitzhak Shamir has asked Secretary of State George P. Shultz to close the Palestine Liberation Organization offices in the United States, Israel radio reported Saturday.

According to the broadcast, Shamir wrote Shultz that the PLO offices in Washington and New York should be closed because the guerrilla organization has claimed responsibility for the grenade attack Wednesday night in Jerusalem that killed one man and wounded about 70 people. The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman was unavailable Saturday to confirm the report.

Meanwhile, in Cairo, PLO leader Yasser Arafat was quoted as saying that all PLO military forces have been pulled out of Tunisia. In an interview with the Cairo magazine October, Arafat said the decision to withdraw followed an Israeli air raid on the PLO’s Tunis headquarters last October. He has said previously that his guerrillas were being relocated in Yemen and Iraq.

The Israeli broadcast also quoted Shultz as saying he hopes that Israel’s settlement policy in the occupied territories will not change under Shamir, currently foreign minister, changes jobs Monday with outgoing Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

Settlement groups and politicians in Shamir’s rightist Likud Bloc have called for building 20 new settlements over two years in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip, areas captured during the 1967 Middle East War. Under Peres, four new settlements were built.