The World : No Israeli Envoy to Austria

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said his country will not send a new ambassador to Austria because of allegations that President Kurt Waldheim took part in Nazi war crimes. “We have decided to be satisfied with a lower level of representation,” Peres told the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament. Ambassador Michael Elitzur was summoned home from Vienna in June to protest Waldheim’s election, which followed the disclosure of documents indicating that he lied about his World War II service in the German army. Israel is represented in Vienna by a charge d’affaires. Waldheim, whose office is mainly ceremonial, denies he was involved in war crimes.