Gorbachev, in a Shift, Meets Israeli Officials : Diplomacy: ‘Questions of mutual interest’ discussed in the first such high-level session since 1967 Arab war.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, signaling an important shift in the Kremlin’s Middle East policy, met here with two Israeli government ministers on Friday in the first such meeting since Moscow broke diplomatic relations with the Jewish state during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

In a brief report, the official Soviet news agency Tass said that Gorbachev had discussed “questions of mutual interest” with Israeli Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai and Science and Energy Minister Yuval Neeman.

Their visit, officially at the invitation of the Soviet Chamber of Commerce and Industry, prompted immediate speculation that the Soviet Union was about to resume diplomatic relations with Israel in a major realignment of relations in the Middle East as a result of the crisis in the Persian Gulf.

But Gennady I. Gerasimov, the chief spokesman of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, discounted the possibility of such a move immediately.

“They are on their own mission, which is not linked with the question of re-establishing relations and, of course, not to the conflict in the Persian Gulf,” Gerasimov said. “They are not competent to discuss these things.”

He added, however, that the Soviet Union is “taking an active part in discussions and efforts to find a solution for the situation in the Middle East” and, consequently, has been expanding its relations with Israel at various levels.

Israeli news media reported that Modai and Neeman would discuss possible agricultural sales to the Soviet Union in a barter deal for Soviet oil as well as a project in which Israel would fit Soviet aircraft, primarily cargo planes, with U.S.-built engines and Israeli avionics, for worldwide sale.

But the ministers’ meeting with Gorbachev almost immediately on their arrival in Moscow made clear the overriding political importance of the secretly arranged visit and its probable impact on the shifting alignments in the Middle East.

In a companion move, the Soviet Union is expected to renew diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia next week during a visit here by Prince Saud al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister. The Saudi religious affairs minister is currently on a visit at the invitation of Muslim leaders in Soviet Central Asia.

“We are repositioning ourselves in the Middle East,” Igor Belayev, one of the country’s leading specialists on the region, said in an interview. “The process had begun earlier, but the crisis in the Persian Gulf has accelerated it. Important, even fundamental changes are under way, and they will have a far-reaching impact . . . .

“When President Bush said in Helsinki on Sunday that the United States recognized--and recognized for the first time--that the Soviet Union had a legitimate and important role to play in the Middle East, he gave these moves even greater momentum.”

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze was already scheduled to meet with David Levy, his Israeli counterpart, at the United Nations later this month, and a high-level team of Israeli diplomats arrived here on Thursday for a wide range of preparatory talks--the first official Israeli delegation here in 23 years--on developments in the Middle East.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli housing minister and a key member of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s Cabinet, had just completed a weeklong visit to Moscow for discussions on possible cooperation in providing homes for the massive numbers of Soviet Jews, now more than 10,000 a month, moving to Israel under Moscow’s liberalized emigration policy.

Sentiment has been growing among Soviet specialists on the Middle East for the resumption of diplomatic relations as quickly as possible to position the Soviet Union as a partner with the United States for possible mediation in the region.

Shevardnadze, in a new Soviet overture to Israel, had said last week that, in its efforts to promote a resolution of the Middle East conflict, Moscow would respond quickly to any indication by Israel that it was ready for a dialogue on the basic problems of the region.

Shevardnadze said in a major policy speech before the Soviet-American summit meeting in Helsinki last weekend that the Soviet Union felt strongly the need for an international conference on the Middle East, as long as the conference is properly prepared.

“Israel’s agreement to its convocation could exert a positive influence on the overall situation in the Middle East and on efforts to defuse the crisis in the Persian Gulf,” Shevardnadze continued, pressing Israel to accept the Kremlin’s longstanding proposal for an international conference.

Vitaly Naumkin, another leading Soviet specialist on the region, said this week that Moscow understood Israeli apprehensions about such a conference and now accepted that the best preparation would be a series of interim agreements and similar measures.

“Ultimately, for peace we will have to have the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the settlement of the Palestinian problem, an end to the war in Lebanon,” Naumkin said. “But such a comprehensive peace will take time and effort on various issues. Washington has said this, and we by and large agree now . . . .

“For all this, we need a deep, ongoing and open dialogue with Israel, and this must be a priority. Our Arab friends will understand, I think, that we cannot do justice to those causes that we share without such a dialogue. How can we argue the rights of the Palestinians unless we talk with the Israelis?”

Modai and Neeman, like Sharon, are important members of Shamir’s right-wing Cabinet, and the Soviet invitations to all three appear to reflect Moscow’s appreciation of the need to win the agreement of the hawkish Israeli right, not the relatively dovish left, for such a dialogue.

Modai heads a small, hawkish faction within Shamir’s Likud Party. Neeman, a physicist who has held senior positions in Israel’s secretive nuclear program, is from the ultra-nationalist Tehiya Party, a partner with Likud in the present government. Both ministers support the idea of permanent Israeli control over the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were captured in 1967.

Sharon’s visit drew a protest from the Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative here.