Israeli and Soviet Foreign Ministers to Meet in Cairo

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze made a surprise addition to his Middle East schedule by inviting Israel’s foreign minister, Moshe Arens, to meet with him in Cairo on Wednesday, Israeli officials announced Saturday night.

The meeting will be the second in a month between the two foreign ministers and reflects the steady thaw in Soviet-Israeli relations as well as the notable re-entry of Moscow into wide-ranging Middle East diplomacy.

Shevardnadze is on a barnstorming tour of the capitals of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Iran--the most extensive travel by a Soviet foreign minister in the region for many years. Israeli officials said that the meeting with Arens was added at the Soviets’ request.

“If Shevardnadze had just met with the Arabs, his tour would have lacked some dimension. It seems that they wanted to make the whole trip look more serious,” an Israeli Foreign Ministry official said.

Israeli Television reported that Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, will also meet with Shevardnadze in Cairo this week. The Soviets back Arafat’s call for an international conference to resolve the Middle East conflict. Israel refuses to talk with the PLO because of its terrorist repute and its demand for an independent Palestinian state.

Shevardnadze has billed his trip as an exploration of new ideas for Middle East peace. He spent Saturday in Syria, the Kremlin’s closest Middle East ally.

Moscow Proposes 3 Steps

After a six-hour meeting with Syrian President Hafez Assad, Shevardnadze listed three steps proposed by Moscow toward Middle East peace:

First, the U.N. Security Council would hold a special session to discuss the conflict.

Then, the council’s five permanent members--Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union and the United States--would contact the Middle East parties involved, including Israel and the PLO, and “assume the function of a preparatory body for the (peace) conference.”

Finally, the United Nations and its secretary general, Javier Perez de Cuellar, would oversee the peace talks themselves.

The three steps should get under way during the next six to nine months, Shevardnadze concluded.

For many years, the Soviet Union has supported Arab countries such as Syria that reject Israel’s legitimacy as a state. That policy has long put it into conflict with the United States. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has tempered that policy by making approaches both to Israel and to Arab countries that are friendly with Washington and less hostile to the Jewish state, notably Jordan.

Pressure on Arafat

Recent reports from Washington indicate that the Soviets pressed Arafat and the PLO to take steps to reverse their longstanding goal of trying to destroy Israel. The pressure was important in getting Arafat to renounce terrorism and give implicit recognition of Israel in statements he made in December, the reports said.

Moscow also recognized the PLO’s declaration of an independent state.

Last month, Shevardnadze met Arens during a conference in Paris on chemical weapons. Shevardnadze took the opportunity to announce the upgrading of Israel’s consulate in Moscow. Previously, the consulate had just handled visas; now political contacts between the two governments are permitted to take place there.

The Soviet Union severed relations with Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War. In the past two years, relations between the two countries have improved, but Moscow has said that full ties will not be restored until peace moves in the Middle East take shape.

Israel values improved relations with Moscow as a means of shoring up diplomatic links worldwide. Jerusalem also hopes for continued easing of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union.

Conditions for Soviet Role

The Israeli government has hinted it would welcome a role for the Soviet Union in overseeing Middle East peace talks--as long as the talks exclude the PLO and are meant to let Israel work out a treaty with its immediate neighbors in direct talks.

Before meeting with Shevardnadze, Arens will confer with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Their meeting, set for Monday, will be the highest-level Israeli-Egyptian contact since 1987, when Mubarak met then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Geneva.

Egypt is the only Arab nation to recognize Israel.