Queen sends sympathy

Press, 13 November 1982, Page 8

Queen sends sympathy

i NZPA-Reuter London The Queen yesterday sent a message of sympathy to the Soviet leadership after the death of Leonid Brezhnev. It read: "I have learned with regret of the death of President Brezhnev. “In my own name and on behalf of the British people. I send our sympathy to you and the people of the Soviet Union.” In New York the United Nations General Assembly held a special, session in tribute to Mr Brezhnev, and United Nations flags were lowered to half-mast. i The Secretary-General, Mr i Javier Perez de Cuellar, 1 addressing the meeting, praised Mr Brezhnev’s efforts towards detente and internation co-operat-ion. Tributes were delivered on

behalf of the East European, African. Asian, Latin American. and Arab groups, as well as by the heads of individual delegations. The Kremlin’s East European allies reported the death shortly after the official announcement by Moscow. Official expressions of shock and sorrow mingled with muted conjecture about the future. Communist Party and Government chiefs among the Kremlin’s Warsaw Pact allies appeared taken by surprise as much as ordinary citizens when State radios broadcast the news. In Warsaw a Polish government spokesman described Mr Brezhnev as a great friend who understood Poland's problems. But popular resentment of strong Soviet influence over Poland appeared reflected in the

absence of any visible grief among most Poles. The Soviet-backed Government in Afghanistan have expressed “extreme grief and sorrow," Radio Kabul said. The radio quoted a message from the Afghan ruling party and Government leaders to the Soviet leadership as calling Mr Brezhnev a “real friend of Afghanistan.” “The eternal memory of Mr Brezhnev will never be forgotten and will remain in our hearts,” it quoted the message as saying. The leader of a Pakistanbased Afghan resistance group said he hoped a new leadership in Moscow would realise the mistake of the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in December, 1979, and withdraw an estimated 100,000 Soviet troops from there.