Saudi Official Expected to Sign Treaty Restoring Moscow Ties

Prince Saud al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, arrived in Moscow on Sunday, and Soviet officials said he will sign a treaty re-establishing diplomatic relations between the countries, Tass reported.

Saud was greeted at the airport by Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the official news agency said.

The Soviet Union has been cultivating closer ties to moderate Arab governments, as well as to Israel. It severely criticized the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, formerly among its closest allies in the Mideast.

Saudi Arabia and Moscow had full diplomatic relations until 1938, when Josef Stalin closed his embassy in Jidda in a cost-cutting move. Several attempts to re-establish ties during the 1980s faltered over Saudi protests of the Soviet Union’s treatment of its 50 million Muslims.

Another sticking point was the Soviet war against Afghan rebels, who were supported by Saudi Arabia. Moscow withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in 1988.

King Fahd met in December, 1988, with Yuli M. Vorontsov, the Soviet deputy foreign minister, in the first high-level contact between the two countries in 50 years.

“The issue of establishing official contacts between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Saudi Arabia has long been ripe,” Sergei Kirpichenko, a Foreign Ministry official, was quoted by Tass as saying.

The Soviet Union permitted more than 1,000 Muslims to attend the annual pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca this summer. King Fahd recently donated about 1.6 million copies of the Koran to Soviet Muslims.