WORLD : Israel Reopens Soviet Consulate
Soviet Jews sang Hebrew folk songs and danced in celebration today as Israel reopened its consulate in Moscow after a 23-year rupture in diplomatic relations.
The newly appointed consul general, Aryeh Levin, said the consulate’s reopening reflects the growing warmth in Soviet-Israeli relations and is a major step toward restoring full diplomatic ties, which the Soviet Union cut after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Levin said he is confident the two countries eventually will restore full relations but he declined to predict when.
More than 100 Soviet Jews, diplomats and journalists gathered for the ceremonial raising of the blue-and-white Israeli flag in a snowy courtyard outside the consulate, a plain masonry building that was the Israeli Embassy before 1967.
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