Soviets, Israel Renew Full Ties After 24 Years

In a move that climaxes a sweeping change in Moscow’s Middle East policy, the Soviet Union on Friday reopened full diplomatic relations with Israel after a hostile lapse of 24 years.

Soviet Foreign Minister Boris D. Pankin made the announcement jointly with Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy just before Pankin and U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III announced that invitations will be issued for an Oct. 30 Middle East peace conference.

Israel had made the restoration of relations a condition for Moscow playing a sponsor role in talks; the Soviets had said they would restore links when a date and place for peace talks were set.

“We have restored full diplomatic relations with the state of Israel. This is a logical and rational step which is fully consistent with the new realities,” Pankin said in as festive a tone as Soviet bureaucratic speech would allow. “This step became possible because of the considerable success we have achieved in bringing the start of the conference closer.”

Yossi Olmert, an Israeli government spokesman, observed: “This is a big day for Israel.”

In practical terms, the renewal of ties means that ambassadors will be sent to already established consulates, which will be raised in status to embassies. In broader terms, the move takes Moscow from strict alignment with Arab states hostile to Israel into a potential role of broker between them.

In Moscow, Alexei Maslov, an official in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, told reporters: “We consider this step necessary, if the peace conference is to succeed, and if the Soviet Union is to play a major role in this process.”

Moscow broke relations with Israel after the devastating defeat of Arab armies by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Moscow has long been a major arms supplier and diplomatic defender of Arab adversaries of Israel.

Israel’s relations have been warming with Moscow in the last few years; for at least the last 12 months, the restoration of ties had been a foregone conclusion awaiting only a convenient moment. The event was heralded earlier in the week with a new agreement on direct immigration flights between Israel and the Soviet Union.

For several years, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s “new thinking” on foreign policy has altered the Soviet role in the Middle East, resulting in dramatic turns.

The free emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel, for example, has led to a massive influx numbering 350,000 over two years.

Moscow’s decisions to supply arms to Syria on a cash-only basis, rather than as aid, and to suspend a pledge to help Syria match Israel’s military might were factors that pushed Damascus toward recent understandings with Washington, including its agreement to attend the forthcoming peace talks.

The Soviet willingness to abandon Iraq, a former ally, also permitted Washington to win unimpeded international authorization to carry out the Persian Gulf War earlier this year and expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

Once viewed suspiciously by Washington as an obstacle to negotiations, the Soviet Union has been an open, if junior, partner in the Bush Administration efforts to convene a comprehensive peace conference.

During his visit to Jerusalem, which began Thursday, Pankin appeared eager to assure Arab states that Moscow is not allying itself with Israel.

During dinner Thursday night, Levy had suggested that full relations were in the offing. Pankin, in his own remarks, advised: “We hope to finish these negotiations in the same constructive spirit--on condition that we don’t love each other at the expense of others.”

As if to punctuate the remark, Pankin later sped off to a secret meeting with local Palestinian leaders in a hotel in the heart of Jerusalem’s leading Arab commercial district. The Palestinians prodded Pankin to side with them in disputes with Washington over terms for the peace talks.

Pankin was noncommittal and shocked his audience by casually taking harder lines than Washington, suggesting, for instance, that Jerusalem would remain in Israel’s hands, Palestinian participants said.

Baker later apologized to the Palestinians on Pankin’s behalf.

Washington’s position is that the status of the city, where Arab neighborhoods have been under Israeli control since 1967, is a subject of negotiation.

Pankin met with another Palestinian delegation Friday. Dissident members of the Palestine Liberation Organization tried to persuade the visiting envoy that the Palestinians would lose in peace talks.

The Soviet Union was once considered a key supporter of the PLO, and PLO officials have expressed dismay at the Soviet shift toward Israel. Some PLO officials openly applauded the August coup attempt against Gorbachev, in hopes that his overthrow would restore Moscow’s active pro-Arab stance.

The influx of Soviet Jews into Israel also disheartened the Palestinians, who fear they will be displaced in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip by house-hungry immigrants and Israelis looking to flee the crowded coast.