WORLD : Soviets Upgrade PLO Contacts on Eve of Meeting With Israel
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MOSCOW — The Kremlin announced today it would allow the PLO to upgrade its Moscow representation to an embassy, within hours of a meeting between Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Israeli Science Minister Ezer Weizman.
A Foreign Ministry statement said Moscow had “given its consent to the reorganization of the mission of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Moscow as the embassy of the state of Palestine in the Soviet Union.”
In return, the Soviet Union planned to appoint its ambassador to the PLO’s effective government-in-exile, the Tunis-based Executive Committee, the statement said.
No reason was given for the precise timing of the announcement, but analysts suggested it was linked with today’s meeting, believed to be the first high-level contact in the Soviet Union since Moscow severed ties with Israel in 1967.
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