The World - News from Dec. 31, 1985

The Soviet Union denounced Western reports that it will allow a significant rise in the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, calling the reports “provocative concoctions� aimed at undermining Soviet Mideast policy. News reports in the West have said that Moscow may restore diplomatic ties with Israel, ruptured since the Six-Day War of 1967, and let thousands of Jews emigrate in a bid to boost the Kremlin’s Mideast influence. But the official news agency Tass, accusing the “imperialist mass media� of circulating “ill-intentioned rumors,� said: “It goes without saying that these fabrications are totally groundless.�