Mitterrand ends U.S.S.R. trip

Press, 28 November 1988, Page 8

Mitterrand ends U.S.S.R. trip

NZPA-Reuter Paris President Francois Mitterrand returned to France yesterday after a State visit to the Soviet Union where he said that ties were being increased across the board, French State radio reported. The radio quoted Mr Mitterrand as saying while still in the Soviet Union that he would like to see meetings between Soviet and French leaders every year. The radio said Mr Mitterrand was speaking at the Baikonur space centre in Soviet Kazakhstan, which he visited earlier yesterday to

watch the launch of a manned Soviet space flight with a French cosmonaut on board. The Soyuz TM-7 craft carrying the French astronaut, Jean-Loup Chretien, together with two Soviet crewmates, blasted off at 4.50 a.m. (New Zealand daylight time) for a month-long orbital mission. A French-Soviet commission would meet in Paris on February 16 and 17 to prepare for Mr Gorbachev’s proposed return visit to France next year, the radio added. The influential newspaper “Le

Monde” said earlier that Messrs Mitterrand and Gorbachev had discussed stepping up co-operating on space exploration. It said the Soviet Union might now be prepared to take a French cosmonaut into space every two years. Mr Mitterrand was accompanied on the two-day visit by seven French Ministers and a dozen industrialists. He met the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, for talks in Moscow on Friday before the two men appeared together in a live interview with French television.