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Soviets Drop Jewish Emigration Threat, U.S. Official Reports

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From Associated Press

The Soviet Union has retracted what appeared to be a threat by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to suspend Jewish emigration to Israel, a senior U.S. official said today.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III told Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze at a meeting Tuesday in Copenhagen, Denmark, that he was concerned about Gorbachev’s statement at the Washington summit, the official said.

In reply, Shevardnadze told Baker that the Soviets “had no plan to change their approach, they are committed to that,” said the official, who briefed reporters on condition that he not be identified.

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Baker flew to Turnberry from the Danish capital, where he and Shevardnadze attended a 35-nation human rights conference. In Scotland, Baker is to talk with NATO ministers on the latest U.S. and Soviet moves toward an agreement on the military future of a reunified Germany.

The senior U.S. official also said Shevardnadze advised Baker that the Israeli government would be informed that emigration policy was not being altered.

The foreign minister did not say how Moscow was informing Israel, the official said. There are no formal relations between the two countries but diplomats have exchanged visits.

The senior official volunteered the account of the conversation, held at the Soviet Embassy in Copenhagen, when he briefed reporters aboard Baker’s U.S. Air Force jet.

Gorbachev, speaking Sunday at a joint news conference with President Bush at the end of the four-day Washington summit, said Israel should heed the advice of the two leaders and not settle Soviet Jews on the occupied West Bank or in Gaza.

“We are facing the following situation,” Gorbachev said. “Either after these (summit) meetings our concern is heeded in Israel and they will make certain conclusions or else we must give further thought to it in terms of what we do in issuing permits for exit.”

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Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union is at a record high. About 20,000 permits were issued last month. The United States is taking in about 70,000 Soviet Jews this year. Most of the others go to Israel, where their rising numbers perturb the Arabs.

In a speech today to the human rights conference in Copenhagen, Baker called for accelerating the transition to multiparty democracy in Eastern Europe by strengthening the rule of law and encouraging economic freedom.

Specifically, Baker expressed concern that Romania and Bulgaria are not keeping pace with Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany in developing democratic systems.

Periodic elections are a basic human right, Baker said, suggesting that outside observers be used to help speed the transition to democracy in the region.

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