WORLD : Austria Downgrades Its Israel Ties
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VIENNA — Austria will downgrade diplomatic relations with Israel because the Jewish state refuses to send an ambassador to Vienna as long as Kurt Waldheim is president, the Foreign Ministry said today.
A ministry spokesman said Austria’s current ambassador to Israel, Otto Pleinert, has been reassigned to Stockholm. No replacement will be named and Pleinert will be succeeded by a charge d’affaires, he said.
Israel’s ambassador to Vienna, Michael Elizur, retired in 1986 following Waldheim’s election as president amid charges that Waldheim was involved in war crimes while serving in the German army in World War II.
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