Prime Minister Shimon Peres indicated Thursday that Israel was not imposing conditions on the Soviet request to send a consular mission to Jerusalem.
Speaking to reporters during a tour of Afula, Peres said Israel is negotiating out of a sense of mutuality, which he called an accepted principle in diplomacy.
Asked if Israel made an Israeli consular mission to Moscow and freedom of emigration for Soviet Jews conditions for granting the Soviet consular request, Peres replied: “I don’t think one should approach every negotiation with an ultimatum in his hand. It is not necessary — it is mutuality, not conditional.”
Peres said Soviet negotiators “asked for some points” during their meeting August 18 with Israeli negotiators “and we are also asking for some points. This is the normal way to negotiate.”
Peres and his colleagues were criticized Wednesday by Natan Shcharansky and members of the Tehiya Party, following unconfirmed press reports that Israel was not demanding an Israeli consular mission to Moscow as a condition for receiving a Soviet mission in Israel.
PERES WILL TAKE THREE NO’S TO SUMMIT WITH MUBARAK
On another matter, the Premier said that when he meets Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Alexandria in two weeks, he would take “three no’s” with him. He was referring to the Arab League’s “three no’s” at the Khartoum Conference of some years ago: no recognition of Israel, no negotiation with Israel and no peace with Israel. But Peres said his no’s would be “no war, no terrorism and no refusal to negotiate.”
Accepting honorary citizenship of Afula, Peres attacked government bureaucracy for wasting millions of dollars, and said people should be paid a fair rate for their work, rather than having to speculate on the stock market.
He praised the residents of Afula for trying to maintain good relations with their Arab neighbors, despite frequent murderous terrorist attacks on residents during the past year or so.
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