International Iran in against Israel
NZPA-Reuter Teheran Iran’s new leaders, playing host to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, Mr Yasser Arafat, are severing their country’s once-friendly ties with Israel. .
The expulsion from Iran of 67 remaining Israelis was announced by the official Iranian news agency, P.A.R.S., which said the move was aimed at “putting an end to any illegal public or secret relations between the former regime and Israel.”
Under the Shah, Iran was the only Middle Eastern, countiy on a friendly footing with Israel, which used Iranian oil to cover up to 70 per cent of its needs. The new Government has already said it will no longer export oil to the Jewish State.
The decision to expel the remaining Israelis was announced only a few hours after Mr Arafat attended a Cabinet meeting of Dr Mehdi Bazargan’s provisional Administration. At the same time Iran ordered the Shah’s representatives in Israel to leave as soon as possible. Israel formerly maintained a trade office in Teheran which functioned as a diplomatic mission. The building had already been evacuated by the time it was ransacked during the uprising that toppled the Shah earlier this month.
Mr Arafat told a press conference that the revolution had swung Iran firmly on to the Arab side and changed the balance of forces in the Middle East. After his talks with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny and Dr Bazargan, he quoted the new Iranian leaders as saying: “The victory of our revolution will not be complete until the Palestinians are victorious.” Mr Arafat also announced that the Palestine Liberation Organisation would open an office in Teheran at the highest level. In Beirut, the Palestine news agency, W.A.F.A., said the P.L.O. would take over Israel’s former mission in Teheran.
Political problems and administrative chaos still hampered Iran’s oil industry yesterday despite a return to work by most of the country's 30,000 oil workers. There were signs that the workers were not responding effectively to Ayatollah Khomeiny’s call for an end to their four-month-long strike, sources said.
International Iran in against Israel
Press, 20 February 1979, Page 8
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