Shamir Now Asks Soviet Ties Apart From Emigration
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JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, in an apparent change of policy, said Thursday that Israel should pursue relations with the Soviet Union irrespective of Moscow’s policy on Jewish emigration.
“It is in our interest to have normal relations with (the Soviets). It is in our interest to change their attitude toward Israel, toward our policy in the Middle East,” he told state radio.
“But I don’t think we have to put all that together with the problem of Jewish emigration from Soviet Russia,” he said.
Shamir said he wants to divorce the two issues in the interest of Soviet Jews.
“I don’t think the Soviet Jewish people have to be hostages because of our policy in the Middle East,” he said.
Last August, after Israeli-Soviet talks in Helsinki on possible consular ties, Shamir said, “It is inconceivable that an improvement in relations . . . can come without an essential and substantial change in their attitude towards Soviet Jews.”
The Helsinki talks broke up after Israeli officials raised the issue of Jewish emigration.
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