Less than two weeks after the signing of the Middle East Peace Treaty, the Soviet Union has re-affirmed its solidarity with the Palestinians at a special meeting in Moscow on Tuesday (3 April) to mark the Palestinian National Day. It was attended by members of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, who used the occasion to denounce the Egyptian-Israeli treaty.

SYNOPSIS: The Soviet delegation at the ceremony was headed by Alexey Reshetov, Vice-President of the Soviet Red Cross. He welcomed Mohammed Ibrahim Ash-Shajer, the head of the PLO's permanent mission in the Soviet Union.

Over two hundred people, many of them Arab students studying in Moscow, attended the meeting at Moscow, House of Friendship.

In his address, Mr. Ash-Shajer said the treaty signed in Washington and nothing to do with the real situation in the Middle East, nor could it lead to peace in the region. He said the fate of the Palestinians was the real issue, and until this problem was solved there could be no settlement in the Middle East.

Mr. Ash-Shajer praised the Soviet Union for its attitude to the Middle East Peace Treaty. And he said that recent speeches by the Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev had made clear Soviet support for Arab opposition to the peace accords. Soviet commentators have described the treaty as a desperate attempt by the United States to force a new military alliance and so protect its strategic interests in the wake of the Iranian revolution.