Secretary at Soviet Embassy

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 11

Secretary at Soviet Embassy

PA Wellington The Government took a part step towards improving its top level diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union on Monday when the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr Mervyn Norrish, attended a Soviet Embassy reception to mark the sixtysixth anniversary of the October Revolution. Last year’s reception, the high spot of the year on the Soviet Embassy calendar, was attended by a deputy secretary of the Ministry. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Cooper, has not attended the function since New Zealand expelled the last Soviet Ambassador, Mr Vsevoled Sofinsky, in 1980, for passing funds to the Socialist Unity Party. In retaliation, the Soviet Union told the then New Zealand Ambassador in Moscow, Mr Jim Weir, who had just completed his term, to hurry his departure. They also declined to

accept the New Zealand Ambassador-designate, Mr Roger Peren. Neither nation has exchanged an Ambassador since, each mission being headed by a charge d’affaires. Mr Norrish shook hands with the Soviet charge, Mr Vladimir Avarushkin, at yesterday’s reception and proposed a toast to the Soviet President, Mr Andropov. Mr Avarushkin approached Mr Cooper last March about upgrading representation between Moscow and Wellington to Ambassador* level. Mr Cooper confirmed then that he had received an approach, but declined to comment further.

Although the Government expressed its “revulsion” at the shooting down of a South Korean airliner recently, an official New Zealand trade mission went to the Soviet Union last month.